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IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 




Naskapi 



In 
Northern Labrador 

WILLIAM B. CABOT 



With many illustrations 
from photographs 




RICHARD G. BADGER 
Cfie dortiam ^resi£( 

BOSTON 



Copyright, 1912, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



©CI.A3002b'; 



PREFACE 

[T has been said by some one, within recent 
years, that all the places now unexplored 
were so miserably bad that no one would 
care to have anything to do with them. The 
caribou country of northeastern Labrador may 
or may not be an exception to this rule. There 
are worse regions to wander in. Moreover, the 
people are to be considered. Not every one cares 
for native races, but most wilderness travelers do. 
I have myself found the Labrador people well 
worth while. 

The Indian -na-mes I have used need some ex- 
planation. As&i#-^a%, '-the name of the fine 
stream the George River people come to the coast 
by, is pronounced As-si-waw-ban. It means 
"Waiting place," from a deer pass near the coastal 
height of land where the Indians camp and wait 
for the migration to come from north. The river, 
or brook, as the shore whites call these larger 
streams, is best known to the bay people as Frank's 
Brook, from the name of a one-time resident near 
its mouth. These personal names given to bays 
and rivers are more or less subject to change, 
accordingly as the settlers change and succeed 
one another. One year the river may be Smith's, 
another year Jones's, and in due time, perhaps, 
Robinson's. I have taken pleasure in rescuing 
the names of some of these clear Indian rivers, 
particularly the Assiwaban, and the N6-ta-qua-n6n, 
from the ignominy of shifting white nomenclature. 
Likewise I have used the Eskimo name 0-pe-tik 
Bay for the Merryfield Bay of Low's map, partly 



vi PREFACE 

because the latter name is not used now, even by 
the shore people, who have reverted to the ancient 
designation, never in fact abandoned by them, of 
Opetik. 

Mistastin means, as nearly as our clumsy out- 
door English permits, "Where the wind blows 
everything off the ground," that is, moss and 
trash and light soil. 

The personal names are mostly explained in the 
text. Kamoques is pronounced in three syllables. 
In Ashimaganish the accented a is like a in father. 
I am sorry to say that the name of old Nijwa is 
incorrect, although Nijwa is something like it. 
The meaning of her actual name is Snipe, yellow- 
leg snipe. Ah-pe-wat, as well Ah-pe-w6t, means 
an imbedded pebble, as in pudding-stone. "You 
know the little stones that grow inside a rock?" 
said old E., my chief source of information in such 
matters, "They are Ah-pe-wat." As to Pi-a-shun- 
a-hwao, who by the way is a worthy son of the 
great chief at Ungava, old E. explained, "When you 
shoot anything handy, that's Pi-a-shun-a-hwao." 
The a in the first and last syllables of P.'s name is 
long, as in fate; the other a might be o or uh. 

One or two English names I have changed, for 
reasons which are commonplace. One cannot be 
wholly unrestrained when writing of living people. 
The happenings related, however, if not exciting, 
are at least true. I wish I had felt competent to 
deal with the subject of Dr. Grenfell's remarkable 
mission work, as well as that of the Moravians. 
I owe much to the kindness of both establishments. 

The map inserted is rather a sketch. The 
coast is taken mainly from the sea chart, a poor 
reliance. Inland the distances are only estimated, 
and the courses taken with a small hunting com- 



PREFACE vii 

pass, but the longitude 64° 25', at the west end of 
the portage between the Kanekautsh lakes, should 
be a pretty good one. It fixes the position of the 
George River ten or eleven miles west, a rather 
important matter. I should not care, however, to 
insist upon the exactness of even this observation, 
as it is not easy to keep one's timepiece steady 
in such rough travel as was involved. Still we 
had three good watches carefully rated. 

The Montagnais route by the No-ta-quanon is, 
of course, not drawn to scale. Like all Indian 
maps, it is made only to travel by. For this pur- 
pose, however, their maps are often better than 
ours. One needs to be used to their method. 

I have named the regular Indian height of 
land crossing at the head of Hawk Lake, the 
Quackenbush Pass; the fine trap headland at the 
west end of Mistastin Lake, Walcott Dyke, and 
the low but commanding hill at the outlet of 
Mistinipi, and from which Dr. Howe and I took 
observations in 1910, Howe Hill. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE 

CHAPTER L— LABRADOR 1 

An Old Country — Exploration — Bastian and 
Richards 

CHAPTER H.— NEWFOUNDLAND 13 

The Way North — Hubbard's Plans — St. John's 

— Mud Trout — Navigation — ■ Battle Harbor 

CHAPTER HL— THE ATLANTIC COAST 26 

The Fishing — Hubbard's Journey — Geology — 
The Missions — Ice — The Schooners — On the 
Cambria 

CHAPTER IV.— FANNY'S HARBOR 42 

Cape Harrigan Island — Sam Bromfield — Ku- 
talik — Davis Inlet 

CHAPTER v.— INDIANS 54 

Davis Inlet — At Jim Lane's — Opetik — A 
Parting — Side Brook — Assizvaban River —^ 
Voisey's Bay — Solitude — Un'sekat — The Big 
Rattle — To Davis Inlet — Spracklin's — Bay 
Travel — Naskapi — A Night Trip — A Lost 
Steamer — Spracklin's — Back to Davis Inlet — 
A Doubtful Position — The Dickers — With the 
Indians — A Naskapi Parting — A Failing Ven- 
ture — A Piece of Pork — Un'sekat — For 
Fanny's Harbor — Waiting for the Virginia — 
Newfoundland 

CHAPTER VI. — 1904 130 

North Again — The Nain Passages — Assizvaban 

— Trout — The Wind Lake — The River Val- 
ley — Rock Ptarmigan and Shrikes — A Wol- 
verene — A Long Valley Wall — An Indian 
Visit — A Disturbing Picture — Down River — 
Nain 

CHAPTER VII. — 1905 159 

Ice — Assiwaban — Ostinitsu — The Barrens — 
A Bear — Exploration — With the Indians — 
Caribou — Mistinipi — Windbound — House 
Harbor 

ix 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII.— 1906 185 

SpracklirCs — Outfit — To Opetik — Opetik -— 
Old Edward — Off for the Inland — Wind — 
Complications — Back to the Coast — A Long 
Day's Paddle — JJn^sekat — Davis Inlet — Saw 
Bromfield's — In Lane^s Bay — Ethics on Trade 

— Wolves — A Raised Beach — Dogs — A Start 
from Nain — Richard — Across the Barrens — 
Mice — Ostinitsu's Camp — Guests of the Camp 

— Spearing Deer — Indian Mariners — An Ex- 
posed Camp — Disappointed Travelers — A Berry 
Bear — Out to the Shore — Windbound at 
Un'sekat — Caught by a Norther — A Hard 
Night — Home Places — Farewell Days 

CHAPTER IX.— 1910 263 

Mistinipi Deer Crossing — On Mistinipi — Mos- 
quito Point — Tshinutivish — A Night in a 
Naskapi Lodge — A Little Known Region — A 
Naskapi Farewell — A Meat Gorge — Mistastin 

— A Return to the Shore — The Last of Labrador 

APPENDIX 

Mice 287 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Naskapi Frontispiece '^ 

TO FACE PAGE 

A Game Pass at Mistastin Headland 4*^ 

Waiting for Fish 12 ^ 

Hauling a Trap 12 ^' 

The Cape Race Coast 16 *- 

A Small Berg 16 *'" 

Off Battle Harbor 24y 

Wallace, Hubbard, and Elson 28^ 

Undercut Ice, Fanny's Harbor, July 22 28^ 

The Cook of the Cambria /fo^ 

Overturning Ice, Near Voisey^s Bay, igos 40 t^ 

At Red Point 48 '^ 

Davis Inlet 48^ 

Daniel's Summer House 5^ t^ 

Daniel's Dogs ^4 f 

From Daniel's House ^8^ 

Looking Across Davis Inlet ^8*^ 
The Noahs Splitting Fish, Tuhpungiuk in Background 64 <^ 

Un'sekat 64 ^ 

Summer Ptarmigan 72"^ 

Winter Ptarmigan 72 «^ 

Spracklin 80 ^ 

Cod 80*^' 

Kamoques 88 '^ 

Ah-pe-wat 104^ 

Sea Trout at Un'sekat 112^ 

Squaretail and Lake Trout, Assiiuaban River, igo6 112 </ 

Jim Lane 120 ^ 

A Bear, Bear Pond, igo^ 120 ^ 

A Finback, Hawk Harbor 128^ 

The Beginning of the Pack, Cape Harrigan, igo^ 128 ^ 

The Wind Lake of the Assiwaban, Cabot Lake ij6 «/' 

Summer Wolverene 144^ 

Wolverene, under side I44\^ 

An Indian Offering. Bear's Skull on Pole 1481^ 

A Weathered Boulder, Mistastin Lake 148 u^ 

On the High Portage. The Steeper Part is Below 1^6 ^ 

A Good Roof 1^6 '^ 

Indian Camp in the Barrens 160^ 

A Traveling Tent 160%/^ 

Guests 164^ 

xi 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGE 

Barren Ground Lake, Tshinutivish, igo6 164. ' 

Off for the Shore 168 

Bleached Horns, Mistinipi, igio 168 

Ostinitsu 172 '-' 

On the Assiwaban 176 ^ 

White Moss Slopes with Caribou Paths, Mistinipi 180" 

Assiwaban River, from West of High Portage 184- 

A Mosquito Day. Dr. Howe in igio 184 ' 

Mistinipi 192' 

The White Moss Hills, Near Mistinipi 192 '' 

Nahpayo, Pakuunnoh, Ah-pe-wat, igo6 200' 

From the High Portage 200'- 

Abram and George Lane 208 '^ 

Sam Bromfield with Salmon, igo6 208 <. 

Enough for a Cache 216 

Hair Skins Drying, Mistinipi, jgo6 216^ 

A Raised Beach 220. 

Making Pemmican and Working Skins, Mistinipi 228- 

A Windy Camp 232 >/ 

Caribou 236 ''^' 

A Windrow of Horns 240^ 

Long Pond, from Caribou Hill 244 v 
Watching the Caribou. Lookout and Deer Crossing at 

Mistinipi 248 

Puckway 2§2 . 

A Mistinipi Bearskin 2^6 ' 
Fleshing a Deerskin with Double Leg Bone of a Deer 2^6 --^ 

Nijwa, Dressed wholly in Caribou Skins 260. 

A Food Scaffold 264,- 

Crushed Marrowbones from perhaps a Thousand Deer 264 

At Davis Inlet 268 

A Dead Fall, Mistinipi, igio 268 

Tshinutivish 272 ■ 

In a Tshinutivish Lodge 276 

Hair Skins, Mistinipi, igo6 276 

A Tshinutivish Lodge. Broiling a Whitefish 27g 



Xll 



IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 



IN 
NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Chapter I 
LABRADOR 

INTERIOR Labrador, if a country of severe 
winter conditions, and not too easy to 
travel in at any time, is not quite the desola- 
tion it is generally believed to be. Unavailable 
for most purposes it is, even as regions of its 
rather high latitudes go, and of course an utter 
wilderness, but its name is worse than it deserves. 
The peninsula is seldom cold in summer, and if 
its rivers were less difficult it would be more widely 
known as a field of travel ; and also, from its great 
extent, as a nearly inexhaustible one. As it is, 
however, the usual summer wanderer is not in a 
way to make much impression upon its spaces. 
Nor, after all, does such a country appeal to the 
many. It is too elemental a land. 

The long Atlantic coast of the peninsula, 
rocky, berg sentineled, and barren, has failed 
in the eyes of navigators from the first. To hardy 
Leif Ericson it appeared a "land good for nothing"; 
he called it Helluland, "Flat-stone land," and 
sailed away. Worse yet was old Jacques Cartier's 
oft-quoted title, "The land which God gave 
Cain"; a sincerity, touched by whatever of tem- 
perament, which brooks no counter. He spoke 
as he saw. But it is to be remembered that Jacques 
Cartier was born to sunny France, and saw only 
the blasted outer shores of the peninsula — per- 
haps in one of its sunless, harder moods. It is 
fortunately true that the exposed coasts of the 
world are not always to be taken as an index 

1 



2 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

of what is to be found within, and the coasts of 
Cartier's bitter word are faced to polar blasts 
unbroken. 

The trouble with interior Labrador, the great 
tableland, is less climatic than geological; it has 
little soil. The last ice-cap, which left the country 
only a little time since, as things go, ground away 
the rocks, already old, to their hard, unweathering 
base; and upon this foundation soil makes but 
slowly. If there were enough soil almost the 
whole tableland would be forested high. 

Yet climate brought the ice-cap, and climate 
has played its full part. The present period finds 
the peninsula surrounded by cold seas, ice locked 
for many months of the year, never ice free ex- 
cepting on the very south. The winds from all 
shores are cold. What the aspect of the country 
was when the broad interior sea from Hudson's 
Bay south, the Central Sea, made for warmer 
currents, none can now say. There has been time 
and change enough for anything. This long- 
enduring land, one of the oldest primal faces of 
the globe, may have been the cradle of the human 
race. It lies in moderate latitudes, little as this 
may have counted in the past, for coal and 
fern fossils are found still farther to the north. 
England, with its scarce-freezing winters, lies level 
to the east; the extreme of Scotland is broad off 
the swirling ice fields of Ungava Bay, as high in 
latitude, almost, as the farthest northern extension 
of the peninsula. The northern limit of Labra- 
dor's main body is only the parallel of 60°, a 
parallel which in many places cuts through settled 
lands, through waving wheatfields often, around 
the world. 

In the earlier ages of the unchanging old 



AN OLD COUNTRY 3 

peninsula its territorial neighbors were only in 
the building. Other lands, far and near, were made 
and unmade, the sea came and the sea went, 
while this old cornerpost of the continent held 
its ancient place, not much changed in outline, 
but wearing, wearing, wearing down through in- 
conceivable time. Wide were the transforma- 
tions of other areas of the hemisphere, and by 
comparison rapid, a turmoil of continental forms. 

So it is that the actual age of what one now 
sees in the peninsula is hopelessly beyond reckon- 
ing. In valleys eroded far into the older rocks 
have been found deposits of the more recent 
Cambrian measures, laid down since the valleys 
were completed. The valleys had been cut down 
in previous ages by a process so slow that our 
minds fail before it. Yet this "recent" Cambrian, 
laid in after the valleys had reached their depth, 
has been thought to date back twenty-eight 
million years. Even then the tale is not told. 
The under rock, the "basement complex" of 
geology, is believed to have been formed from 
sediments too; the real foundation is below. 

Now the peninsula is mainly an uneven waste 
of low hills and ridges. The glacial moraines and 
the terraced drift of the valleys bear trees only 
sparsely, save to the south and in low valleys near 
the sea. So recently was the ice-cap over all that 
the innumerable Indian-known lakes of the plateau 
have not had time to drain themselves by cutting 
down their outlets or to become silted up by 
material from higher levels. Their life falls within 
the historic old-world period. Six thousand years, 
a negligible span geologically, may well cover 
the time since the ice departed. Until then, 
while the glaciers were still moving seaward, the 



4 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

coast was flanked by bergs from Its own inland, 
and the stately procession which now passes from 
Baffin's Bay along the coast may have been locked 
in the north, or forced to a distant offing. 

Exploitation in the modern sense has found no 
foothold, save for a few lumber and pulp opera- 
tions in the outer valleys of the south. Minerals 
may well appear on the western side, difficult of 
access now, and there is iron in quantity on the 
southern slope and in the central north, but the 
archaean rocks of the main part of the country 
are not very promising otherwise. In the north- 
east are recent rocks of more hopeful aspect, 
occupying an area remarkably described by Regi- 
nald Daly, in Dr. Grenfell's "Labrador." Better 
opportunities for prospecting on the western side 
will follow the building of the Hudson's Bay rail- 
road from Manitoba. 

The ultimate future of the semi-barrens, which 
stretch away from the middle country to Ungava 
and the polar north, may be as pasture ground for 
domesticated reindeer. In the hands of some 
northern nomadic race — perhaps Lapps or the 
present Eskimo-white strain of the shores. Mean- 
while the one product of the Interior, not to be 
wholly superseded even if minerals are found, is 
fur, which will not soon fail. This is Its only yield 
to the world. Most other regions of earth left 
to the hunter races are being fast invaded, they 
are more amenable to the modern purpose, their 
borders are approachable the year around. But 
isolated Labrador, avoided to this day in the great 
westward march of civilization, may yet be known 
as the "Last of the Fur Countries." 

Whatever Its economic future, the invitation 
of the country to the wilderness traveler, the 




A Game Pass. Bear and Caribou Path at Mistastin Headland 



EXPLORATION 5 

traveler with a taste for unworn places, Is unusual. 
Nowhere are such clear, unfished rivers, mapped 
and unmapped, large rivers and small; nowhere are 
such white-moss hills as those of the semi-barrens, 
velvet to the feet and fair to the eye. More than 
all are the lakes. Its lakes are Labrador's glory. 
Wide over the plateau they spread, along the water- 
sheds and in the higher valleys. Nowhere are 
such lakes, — from the tiny "flashets" of the 
Newfoundlanders, their mission only to reflect 
the sky, to great Michikamau and Mistassini, 
with their far water horizons. Lake Mistassini, 
the largest, is a hundred miles long. 

Nor is it easy in this day to find the primitive 
hunter life as unchanged over a large country as 
in Labrador. Over their great territory the people 
still wander at will, knowing no alien restraint, no 
law but their own. The unwritten code of the 
lodge and the open, the ancient beliefs, are still 
theirs. 

Not a few districts of Labrador are still un- 
explored. None of them is very large unless in 
the far Northwest, but particularly in the central 
area and the northern half of the peninsula gen- 
erally, there is fresh ground for the seasonal visitor, 
the minor explorer, for a long time to come. It is 
true that some of these regions are not easy of 
access, for the rivers are strong and the distances 
great, but there remain good regions which are 
near and accessible. It may be taken that no 
white man has ever crossed the country from side 
to side. It would be a journey of ten or twelve 
hundred miles. Yet, absurdly enough, several 
of us who go into the country are announced to 
have "crossed Labrador." So with Mrs. Hub- 
bard, and Dillon Wallace, and Mr. and Mrs. Stephen 



6 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Tasker and myself. Corners of it some of us have 
crossed, but in trips not exceeding half the width 
of the main peninsula. There is a difference be- 
tween being two hundred miles from a base and 
five. 

Before the time of Low, whose report came 
out in 1896, it was difficult to get much informa- 
tion about the country, particularly the middle 
and northern parts. There was not much trouble 
about the southern slope to a distance east of the 
Moisie, for the main rivers had been more or less 
mapped. But the most interesting parts of these 
rivers, their upper headwaters and the lakes of 
their watersheds, had been left untouched. In 
the southwest, however, on the Saguenay branches, 
and on the Outardes and Maniquagan, surveys 
had reached farther. 

There had been some other observations by 
good observers, though lacking instruments of 
precision. One of the best known of these ex- 
plorations was by Henry Youle Hind, in the early 
sixties. He saw the fire-swept country about the 
head of the Moisie, and was impressed by its 
desolation. "Words," he wrote, "fail to describe 
the awful desolation of the Labrador tableland." 
Hind had imagination beyond most Labrador 
travelers, and his gatherings about the Indians, 
who naturally attracted him, show unusual illumi- 
nation. In those days they were being forced 
from the ruined plateau to the Gulf shores, to 
perish untimely from the damp climate and unac- 
customed diseases. Hind's book was long the 
standard upon Labrador, and is still interesting. 

The lower Hamilton was visited in 1887 by 
Mr. R. F. Holmes, who brought away a good sketch 
map of the river as far as Lake Winikapau. His 



EXPLORATION 7 

objective had been the Grand Falls, then assumed 
to drop sheer from the plateau level of near two 
thousand feet elevation to the level of the sea. 
Deficiencies of equipment caused his early return. 
The falls are really a little more than three hun- 
dred feet high. 

In 1891 Gary and Gole of Bowdoin GoUege 
reached the falls, two hundred and fifty miles 
above tidewater, followed closely by Henry G. 
Bryant and Arthur Keniston, who measured them. 
While Gary and Gole were away from their boat 
at the falls it caught fire and burned, and they 
were left to make their way by a serious foot-and- 
raft trip to the coast. Dr. Low happened to be 
at Northwest River Post when they came out, 
looking the hard experience they had had. They 
came swimming across the river, some two miles 
wide, on a log in the remnants of their clothes. 
Low afterward told Stuart Gotter, a Hudson's Bay 
Gompany friend, that the unconcerned way in which 
they took the whole matter was extraordinary. 

In the Northeast occurred the journeys of John 
McLean, about 1840. From Fort Ghimo, on 
Ungava Bay, he followed the Indian route to 
Michikamau, thence descending past the Grand 
Falls to Hamilton Inlet. In 1838 he made a 
notable winter walk from Ghimo to Northwest 
River, some six hundred miles, following North- 
west River itself for part of its course, and re- 
turning by much the same route. The stark 
lifelessness of the country at times was much the 
same then as now. "We saw no game," was his 
significant remark regarding the return trip. It 
is unwritten history that fifty miles from Ghimo 
the party gave out and were saved the fate of 
Hubbard, who in recent years met his end by 



8 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

starvation on the same route, only by the efforts 
of an Indian, who had strength to force his way 
to the post and send back relief. The parallel 
with the case of Hubbard is singularly near, and 
quite identical as regards the rescue of his com- 
panion, Wallace. A white man of each party 
was saved by the devotion and endurance of an 
Indian. The occurrences were sixty-seven years 
apart. As to McLean's discovery of the Grand 
Falls, there is no reasonable doubt that they were 
visited some years before his time by David 
Dixon, or Dickson, a trader. This was told me by 
his grandson, whose name is Hewitt, and who now 
lives in Boston. 

One more notable journey was made during 
the later period, that of Father Lacasse, who 
traveled with Indians in 1875 or 1876 from North- 
west River Post to Chimo over substantially the 
same route, as far as Michikamau, followed by 
Dillon Wallace in 1905. 

These explorers belong to quite a recent time; 
their period is the modern one of much writing, 
of reports and books and magazines; therefore we 
all know them. But it would not do to take 
their part as being more than a small proportion 
of the white man's wanderings that went on in 
the peninsula previous to the time of Low. Traders 
and missionaries, the latter the Jesuits and their 
successors, the Oblate Fathers, and before all if 
not through all the old Coureurs des Bois, traveled 
and drifted with the Indians from the very be- 
ginnings of the early French period. Of most of 
their wanderings, as of their experiences, no record 
exists. They always traveled with Indians, and 
the network of Indian routes extends to Ungava 
and the treeless north. 



EXPLORATION 9 

Little less negligible for present purposes were 
the voyagings of Hudson's Bay Company people 
during the long period when inland posts were 
maintained, for the employees of the company 
were enjoined to silence about the country, and 
what records they made are not available. Now 
the only remaining post of the company in the 
main interior is at Nichicun, near the geographical 
center and apex of the peninsula, and few, if any, 
of the Hudson's Bay Company officers at the 
shores are qualified to undertake inland travel. 
The title of "Inland Man" is all but extinct. 

Such was the position of exploration to the 
early nineties. Until then the maps of the main 
part of the country showed few dependable 
features. Some of the principal lakes were laid 
down, usually wrong in place, shape, and size, 
and often in drainage. Likewise certain of the 
larger rivers, known by their estuaries at the 
coasts, were almost an equal credit to the draughts- 
man's imagination, and a firm range or two of 
mountains was apt to be thrown in. There was 
some foundation of report for most of the features 
shown, but to any one planning to travel in the 
country the maps would as well have been left 
blank. 

Now, chiefly in the early nineties, came the 
real surveys of Low, to whose methods of accuracy 
the main tableland was as a clean page. The 
wide-spaced gridiron of his travel routes is shown 
on his well-known map of 1896. His notable 
journey from Lake St. John to Chimo by Mis- 
tassini, Nichicun, Kaniapishkau, and the Koksoak 
remains the only diametrical crossing of the country 
to this time. The pace had to be unremitting, 
rainy days and Sundays alike, and the expedition 



10 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

only just caught the Hudson's Bay Company 
steamer in the fall, on its way south. The voy- 
ageurs of his principal expeditions were not 
Indians of the regions visited, but Montagnais 
from Lake St. John. Transported provisions 
were depended upon to the high level, where fish 
netted in the lakes considerably took their place. 
It is to be noted that in the interminable water 
courses of the central area local guides were 
absolutely necessary to his effective progress. 
As one of his Indians told me in later years, with 
the ring of appreciation, "We always had a guide!" 
For the want of one, in a later year. Low had to 
give up going from Lake Naokokan to Nichicun, 
only a few miles' distance. He was several days 
trying to find the outlet of Naokokan, the lake 
being large and masked by islands, and finally 
gave up and returned down Maniquagan River, 
which he had just ascended. He was short of 
provisions, else he would of course have made his 
way through, a matter only of a little more time. 
Afterward he learned that the outlet was very close 
to the inlet he had entered the lake by. In the 
matter of supplies a remark of his in Dr. Grenfell's 
"Labrador" is worth remembering: "A good 
supply of provisions means good-natured canoe 
men, willing to go anywhere without a thought 
of danger, whereas the suspicion of starvation 
will change the same men into a discontented, 
mutinous crew." 

The most important work done since Low's 
return is Mrs. Hubbard's exploration of Northwest 
River, while scarcely less to be appreciated is 
her good travel map of George River. A later 
journey made by Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Tasker, 
from Richmond Gulf to Chimo, a distance of 



BASTIAN AND RICHARDS 11 

nearly five hundred miles, required perhaps as 
much hardihood as any that could be named, 
being a single-canoe voyage in a nearly gameless 
country, the men of the party shadowed, more- 
over, by responsibility for the safety of the 
woman passenger. The voyageurs were George 
Elson and Job Chapies, men to whom was due 
much of Mrs. Hubbard's success in 1905. 

After the completion of Low's work it was my 
fortune to fall upon some of his old voyageurs at 
Lake St. John, one of whom was John Bastian, a 
Scotch Montagnais now near Murray Bay. He 
was one of my two companions, in 1899, during a 
midwinter walk to Mistassini Lake, on Rupert 
River, the third member of the party being Robert 
Richards, a Scotch Cree from Hudson's Bay, and 
a remarkable man. He has died lately near the 
Saguenay River. John, the principal guide, spoke 
little English then, but a good deal of evening 
talk went on about the interior and I came into 
quite a little light on the country and people, 
including the Naskapi of the North, besides 
getting together a small stock of Montagnais 
words. The trip was my beginning in the Indian 
North. 

Our falling together as a party, the two Indians 
and I, was a chance happening, yet if only from 
events which might be taken as in sequence, and 
in some sort affecting various lives, the occurrence 
might well have been ordered and meant to be. 
That initial trip was favored in all respects, and 
though others followed in which one or both of 
these men took part, up many rivers and over 
many heights of land, we always looked back to 
our first venture together as in a light of its own. 
In a sort it was a first experience for us all, white 



12 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and Indian; we saw with the same eyes, and passed 
into a relation which none of us had expected. 

By the time I shifted to fresh ground in the far 
Northeast, and again needed their help, both men 
had positions as guardians of club territories, and 
I did not try to unsettle them. Some vicissitudes 
would have been spared me if I had, and as the 
world has gone with them their fortunes might 
have been none the worse. At any rate this 
narrative, largely that of a good deal of half- 
solitary wandering, would have had a different 
face. 




Waiting for Fish 





Hauling a Trap 



Chapter II 
NEWFOUNDLAND 

THE Atlantic Labrador, Labrador North, 
begins at the Straits of Belle Isle. There 
are two ways to get there, one by Bay 
of Islands on the west side of Newfoundland, the 
other by St. John's on the east side, and either 
of these points of approach can be reached mainly 
by rail. A long canoe, however, such as I took 
In 1903, Is an awkward piece of baggage on an 
extended railroad journey, and not caring to watch 
at day and night junctions to keep It from being 
left, I held to the sea route thoughout. I left 
Boston on the Plant Line Olivette, the 20th of 
June. There was a change at Halifax to the Red 
Cross Sylvia, with a day or two of waiting, then a 
run of some fifty hours to St. John's, and the rest 
of the voyage to Cape Harrlgan, nearly a thousand 
miles as one goes, falls with the Labrador mall- 
boat. 

I had It In mind to see the coast at least, and 
form an Idea of what could be done at some future 
time In the way of a trip Inland. This might be 
all that was practicable on a first random visit. 
But what I was really hoping for was to get Into 
touch with the Indians of the Northeast, the primi- 
tive Naskapl of George River. 

My old southern slope men had told of them, 
with a touch of the superiority those with white 
blood are apt to feel, as wild and unchanged. 
Then Low, In his last report, had mentioned them; 
according to him they lived about the large Indian 

13 



14 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

House Lake on the upper George, depended almost 
wholly upon the caribou, rarely visited the shore, 
and were more independent of outside resources 
than any other Indians of the peninsula. Some 
of them came to a grown-up age without ever 
seeing the shores. By Low's account the short, 
rapid rivers of the eastern slope were unnavigable, 
and the Indians came out to the Atlantic only in 
winter, a few of the young men hauling furs on 
long, narrow sleds and hastening back with the 
few articles that they cared to trade for. 

Indian House Lake itself had long seemed to me 
the most promising objective for a summer trip 
of any region of the whole peninsula. It was un- 
explored, being indicated on the map only in 
conjectural dotted lines. It was large, fifty or 
sixty miles long and a good many wide, and aside 
from its distinction as a last retreat of the primitive 
hunter, it lay in the heart of the northeast range 
of the barren-ground caribou, and well within 
the borders of the elsewhere inaccessible subarctic 
barrens. Here the great zone of the Barren 
Grounds, the Reindeer North, extending from the 
Atlantic to Behring Straits, can be reached by the 
convenient Labrador mailboat, which sails fort- 
nightly from St. John's, and the step from 
ship to shore places one on the very verge of the 
little-known plateau. 

For a good many years previous to the winter 
of 1903 it had appeared to me likely that a foot 
trip could be made from the coast to the middle 
George, but there seemed no way to be sure of 
this without making a visit to the coast, and the 
fact that the Indians found the country too hard 
for summer travel gave my speculations a real 
basis of doubt. If, early in 1903, I had not fallen 



THE WAY NORTH 15 

in with Dr. Grenfell In Boston, It Is possible that 
I should never have staked anything so precious 
as a summer vacation on the doubtful chance of 
getting at the Indians, still less on the finding 
worth while a mere visit to the coast without 
seeing them. But to my surprise and extreme 
Interest Dr. Grenfell told me that he had seen 
Naskapl at Davis Inlet In summer, even treating 
some of them professionally ("veterinary surgery" 
he called It, not being able to talk with his patients), 
and he insisted, against my objections, that they 
had some habit of coming out In summer, though 
by what means he knew not. If I would go by 
the mallboat to Fanny's Harbor at Cape Harrlgan, 
his friend, Tom Spracklln, would put me across 
to the Hudson Bay post In Davis Inlet. This was 
enough; as summer came on I got together 
enough of an outfit to avoid being helpless after 
leaving the steamer, and departed for St. John's 
In time to get the first mallboat of the season. 
The venture was only a reconnoissance; I had no 
safe plans beyond getting eyes on the coast. 

Halifax — quiet, seafaring, much fortified Hali- 
fax — is a comfortable place to wait. The old 
red-coated British garrison is gone, much regretted, 
but its works remain. The modern change in 
warfare is here plain to the eye. The Imposing but 
grass-grown citadel on the hill, enormously costly 
in Its day. Is out of the reckoning. At the present 
time the real defense lies with certain Inconspicuous 
moundy places far down the harbor, with few or no 
guns in sight. So also with the defenses of 
Quebec and Its obsolete citadel, which I have been 
told cost thirty millions sterling. Yet If, how- 
ever, as an officer once related, it saved Canada 
to the flag, the account may have balanced. At 



16 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Halifax I bought an old relic of a greenheart salmon 
rod, but all the better for the many salmon it had 
fought, for three dollars. 

While we were coming down on summer seas 
from Boston, the Sylvia from New York had been 
creeping on behind us in heavy weather. On the 
bridge, when she came in at last, was Leonidas 
Hubbard, Jr., with Mrs. Hubbard, George Elson, 
and Dillon Wallace, also on their way north. I 
had known they were coming, but they were 
surprised at seeing me. If Mrs. Hubbard, pale 
from the rough passage, had been told at 
that time what her career was yet to be on salt 
and fresh water she would doubtless have been very 
unresponsive. But once on terra firma she forgot 
the past, and we all wandered the town together 
while cargo matters were going on. 

In time we were off, our two Oldtown canoes, 
twin craft, side by side on the deckhouse. They 
were eighteen feet by thirty-three inches by 
twelve inches deep. Hubbard's weighed eighty 
pounds, mine ninety-one. The unusual weight 
of mine gave me sore thoughts, going alone as I 
was; the boat had been ordered in Boston at 
about sixty-five pounds, and came from the 
factory too late to be changed. 

In the two weeks before we reached Hamilton 
Inlet we talked plans to rags, discussing at times 
whether I should join the others on their Northwest 
River venture. With more time I should have 
done so. I feared that they would even have to 
winter on the ice-bound coast, as indeed they did. 
Their chances would naturally have been better 
if I had gone along, if only because a second canoe 
would have given room for more supplies. As to 
going with them for merely the first of their trip, 




The Cape Race Coast 




A Small Berg 



HUBBARD'S PLANS 17 

which was discussed, I should share only the heavy 
up-hill stage of the journey without seeing much 
that would be worth while, and perhaps have to 
come back alone over long portages with my heavy 
canoe. I should get most of the bad and little 
of the good. The lower part of the larger Labra- 
dor rivers is usually uninteresting, while the first 
heavy-loaded weeks of such trips with their fre- 
quent portages are apt to be of a back-breaking 
sort and only justified by what follows in the 
easier waters of the level plateau beyond. On the 
other hand, Hubbard was not quite willing to go 
on with me to the northern coast. This would be 
risking his season's opportunity on rather poor 
chances, uncertain as the practicability of getting 
into the interior from that side appeared then. 

For more than a day from Halifax it was foggy, 
and by the time it cleared we were well into the 
great fishing waters under Newfoundland. Here 
it may be said, the North begins. The air loses 
its sea languor, the water looks clearer and colder; 
the craft are open fishing boats, the seabirds are 
plainly northern. The change of latitude, as we 
fared toward Cape Race, was plain. Whether 
it was the many boats with their two tanned sails 
that most appealed to us — boats of fishermen 
sawing endlessly with long arms, "jigging" for 
cod in the early dawn — or the larger strange birds 
that wheeled about or skimmed the smooth swell, 
it would be hard to say. Slanting low over the bow 
flew a large, uncanny bird, with no head or eyes 
distinguishable, merely a sharpened spindle in 
body, — black, or nearly black above, white below, 
from end to end. "Two wings on a mackerel," 
sang quick Dr. C, who was standing with us, and 
the simile was just. It may have been a Greater 



18 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Shearwater. Proper birds, such as ducks and 
gulls, have necks and heads, or at least eyes and 
a visible beak. 

The cliffs along by Cape Race, the southeastern 
corner of Newfoundland, are not very imposing 
from a few miles away, though high enough when 
near. Deep water comes to their very foot. 
Before the present lighthouse was built the place 
was one of the dreaded spots of the sea, with a sad 
history of wrecks upon its uncompromising shores. 
The great ocean pathways are near. Such was 
the set of currents at certain junctures of wind 
and tide that in time of storm and darkness a 
passing ship was carried almost certainly into 
the grip of that iron-bound lee. No skill of the 
mariner availed; lead and line showed no shal- 
lowing, the log gave no reckoning of the drift. 
Without warning came the breakers and the fateful 
cliif s — by many a ghast lookout seen all too late. 

In the placid dawn a few fragments of ice 
floated wide set over the silver. The level of the 
surface seemed lifted far above the seas we had 
left; the impression of high latitude was remark- 
able. We were, in fact, in Arctic water, the eddy 
and edge of the polar stream. The sun was still 
far below the horizon in the northeast, passing 
imperceptibly around; it was hard to believe that 
it would ever reach the sky line. 

As we bore around the land there opened up, 
three or four miles away, our first unmistakable 
polar ice. It was only a bluish, irregular boulder 
of one or two thousand tons, touched by the east 
light, but one who grew up under the spell of 
Kane and Parry and Franklin sees with almost 
unbelieving eyes such a messenger from the real 
Arctic. We were come upon the actual polar 



ST. JOHN'S 19 

world. Where this worn berg first yielded to the 
stream the north star was high to the zenith. 
Men in skins, perhaps, had seen it slowly pass, the 
wheeling burgomaster, the walrus and white bear 
on the moving floes. 

Further on, a fine cleft berg appeared close to 
eastward, and more bergs during the few m.iles 
to St. John's. The greater bergs stood near the 
narrow entrance to the harbor, a grand barricading 
fleet. This entrance is scarcely distinguishable 
from outside. When I asked Captain Farrel if 
he could go in at night or had to wait outside, 
he said with a turn of the thumb toward the tall 
bergs seaward, "We have to go in! Better than 
to bum around in that stuff!" So it might be, 
but it looked a hard choice. 

St. John's is the portal of the north Atlantic, 
and lives by its prey from the sea. Countless 
cargoes of cod have come through its narrow gate 
since Jacques Cartier, in 1534, found the Basque 
ships established there. Countless have been the 
seals, and the stream of salmon and sea trout and 
the furs and skins of the North has never been 
stayed. Now the sealing is not done by schooners, 
but steam sealers. Small, strong, with sloping 
bows to bear down the ice, they lie idle from spring 
to spring, bunched in twos, threes, and fours 
along the east side of the harbor. The city is 
on the west side, stepping up on wide slopes. Its 
buildings are wooden, to an extent, and not old, 
being replacements after the great fires of recent 
times. 

Now we were to learn something of the way of 
northern mailboats, the way of steamers in ice- 
bearing seas. The Labrador boat, it appeared, 
might be back from north in a week, or she might 



20 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

not, depending on the ice, — not the weather, but 
the ice. At Tilt Cove, two days north, she would 
be reported by telegraph, we would be notified 
if we were near. We need not engage staterooms 
in advance, there would be room. 

There was nothing for it but to go fishing. 
There seemed not very much else to do. On a 
holiday just then eight hundred people were said 
to have gone out by railroad for trout. By rail 
we went to Whitbourne, some way out, then down 
the Broad Cove branch ten miles as best we could; 
there was no train that day. Mrs. Hubbard drove 
with the luggage, the rest walked. We camped 
at Broad Cove, near the telegraph, among many 
shallow ponds. The country was burnt and deso- 
late. Many kinds of gulls were about, with little 
obvious occupation but to exercise their remark- 
able breeding-time vocabulary. A cackling note 
prevailed; almost all were weird or discordant. 
They may be love notes, but — ! Early one 
morning we were waked as one person by the 
broken squawks of some large affair that flew 
close over. Elson was sure it had a very bad pain. 
It may have been a gannet, if they commit such 
disturbances. These cries, over the desolate re- 
gion, were disquieting to the ear, a little as of the 
underworld, and according too well with the rocky 
burnt waste. 

The streams were low and sea trout had not 
come up. There were yellow-bellied trout in the 
ponds, sometimes with black parasitic spots, 
these apparently due to the low state of the ponds. 
We caught fish enough for our uses, mostly from 
quarter to half pounders, or less. They were 
what the St. John's trouters call mud trout, which 
curiously is their most complimentary term. 



MUD TROUT 21 

"They were real mud trout!" a fisherman would 
say in climax, when describing his catch. In 
truth they were the best, as far from a "muddy" 
tasting trout as possible. I suspect them of being 
a distinct variety, these yellow-bellied trout of 
the shallow, black-bottomed ponds, perhaps the 
Marston trout. 

We had a good time of it. The Hubbards 
had a tent on one side of the railroad bank and 
the rest of us on the other. We scattered about 
the different ponds. Aside from the gulls there 
was nothing unusual in the way of wild life. Some 
geese bred in the region, Wallace saw an otter, 
and there were loons, also beaver — somewhere. 
In a few days a message came from the Reid Com- 
pany, and the party divided, some for Harbor 
Grace, which was very near, the others to see the 
baggage aboard at St. John's. 

We were off toward night July 2 or 3, with fog, 
but made Harbor Grace in two or three hours, 
where many passengers came on. In the cabin, 
with five staterooms and a small ladies' saloon, 
there were twenty-four persons, and we now had 
light on the steamer's information bureau. What 
we had heard was obviously true; there was no 
need of engaging staterooms, for no more than a 
berth apiece could possibly be beld in the pressure 
of such numbers, and we did get the berth. It 
would have been a hardy individual who would 
have attempted to play dog in the manger with 
a whole stateroom. There was, of course, a good 
deal of camping about in chance places, and small 
ventilation. 

For days it was foggy and little above freezing, 
with a sea and growing wind from northeast. 
There was no place to be warm. On deck the 



22 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

vicious air went to my bones, and below It was 
chilly too, with bad air. The Newfoundlanders 
took it well, standing unconcerned about the open 
deck by the hour while I was seeking the sheltered 
places and was never comfortable. It was a bit 
mortifying to find myself so distinctly inferior, 
though these people were younger and seemed an 
unusually burly lot. But after a day or two, 
happening to observe how one of my stateroom 
mates was dressed, I saw a light. Getting Into 
my kit I put on all the clothes I had along, begin- 
ning with two good suits of winter underclothes and 
ending with the usual overcoat. Coming on deck, 
burly with the rest, I shivered no more. 

Not many gulls appeared, but beds of shear- 
waters, locally "hagdowns," and other kinds, 
stretched along on both sides at times, and single 
birds skimmed the waves rapidly with their 
pointed wings. They are never seen on land here, 
though their season on the coast is the natural 
breeding time of all the other seabirds. It used 
to be thought here that they managed to lay their 
eggs on the water, as swallows have been thought 
to winter in the mud at home. Their breeding 
place is now known to be in the far Antarctic. 
They are sea travelers indeed. 

Ice was visible at all times, save in close fog. 
The navigation in such weather involved much 
more than familiarity with the coast, and the 
working from port to port up the coast, in and out 
and away in the fog and moving ice and at times 
among islands and shoals, was an inspiring feat 
to see. The voyage requires a native seamanship 
beyond all taught navigation. Eighteen feet the 
steamer drew. There are not many men who 
could take a deep craft the thousand miles north 



NAVIGATION 23 

and back, with fifty stops each way, often In tight 
Httle harbors, and not take bottom somewhere 
along the way. Beyond the straits of Belle Isle the 
charts are of little use; beyond Hamilton Inlet 
there is practically no chart. Even if there were, 
the innumerable passages would be confusing in 
fog, and the moving ice islands of the open deeps 
are beyond all charting. The weather may be 
foggy a third of the time, as average runs go. Some- 
times the tide currents foil the log; slowly the vessel 
creeps and the lead is plied. Perhaps the anchor 
goes down. Or a blast of the whistle may bring 
an echo from some known cliff, far or near, and 
the place of the ship located. Sometimes the short 
blast comes back instantly, R-r-rhatt! like an 
angry blow, from the face of a berg just beyond 
sight in the fog, and the screw reverses. In a 
dense, brilliant fog, lying low, the blue sky may 
appear overhead for hours. Nothing of that 
year's trip was better worth while to me than 
seeing Captain Parsons take his ship north and 
back again, good weather and bad. Trip after 
trip he does it, year after year. 

The old Virginia Lake was a sealer, not com- 
fortable and not very clean. She was lost in the 
spring sealing of 1908, crushed by the ice. Now 
the larger Invermore, with her luxury of cleanness 
and space, has taken her place, and one travels 
more comfortably now than from Boston to Halifax. 
The old boat was apt to be inhumanly crowded at 
times, with no reckoning of the impossible second 
cabin. Four persons in a very small stateroom 
was the rule, generally with the port closed. 

Tilt Cove was the last of our five or six stops 
on the island, then with thick weather and a strong 
sea the captain headed wide to the northeast for 



24 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

many hours, past the straits, finally turning west 
to feel for the mainland. Toward night a long 
liner or cattleboat slipped across our bows, ghostly 
in the mist, and it was remarked that we were off 
the straits, for the stranger must be making for 
them. The passengers were largely skippers, 
going to their fishing stations. Although they were 
all familiar with the coast and could take a schooner 
almost anywhere upon it, none of them paid any 
attention to the log over the stern or noted the 
courses. It was not expected of them. I had 
been doing this very thing, thoughtlessly, going 
often to the log with my pocket compass, but I 
became conscious, from the reserve of the skippers, 
that it was a breach of etiquette; Parsons winced 
a little at first, but in such matters he was as easy 
a man as ever walked a bridge. In the end he 
offered me his charts, and I got a living idea of the 
way his game — surely a man's game — was 
played. 

We overreached to the north a little, as was 
meant to be, and the guesses of the skippers when 
we came upon the high Labrador shore were mostly 
for Spear Harbor, a little north of Battle Harbor, 
and , as I remember they were right, even in the 
fog. Battle was not far back. 

Here Mrs. Hubbard left, to return south alone. 
The voyage in the small uneasy steamer had^left 
her weak, and the desolation of the place, doubly 
forbidding in the gloomy northeaster, confirmed 
her depression at the parting with her husband. 
If this were the nearer Labrador, what would it 
be nearly a thousand miles farther north .? Whether 
this was her thought it was almost an inevitable 
one; it is certain that at the parting she expected 
never to see her husband's face again. They had 




[1- 

o 



BATTLE HARBOR 25 

been married only a year or two. In the months 
following she was hopeful, If not confident, but 
in the end the premonition of that evening at 
Battle was fulfilled. 



Chapter III 
THE ATLANTIC COAST 

BATTLE was named for a fight between 
Indians and Eskimo there in early days. 
From there to Hamilton Inlet, some 
hundred and fifty miles, are dozens of fishing 
stations. Among them the mailboat follows the 
winding passages with little outlook to the open 
sea. Wonderful are the deep, shut-in harbors, 
such as Punchbowl and Square Harbor; not 
merely sheltered, but shut in by steep, rugged 
hills. There are no wharves anywhere; the ship's 
boat goes ashore, and shore boats come alongside, 
these chiefly to see the doctor. Few come when 
fish are plenty; there is no time for ailing then, but 
when there are no fish the doctoring takes long; 
it seems as if the steamer would never get away. 
Dr. Boyle turned none away, nor hurried; day 
and night he was rowed to shore cases whenever 
called, sometimes a distance of miles. Bad teeth 
were common; many with tied-up, swollen faces 
came aboard, sometimes to roar most lustily under 
the forceps. 

Some of the crews of young men pulling about 
the harbors or coming in low with fish from the 
cod traps, were not only handsomely built and 
of great rowing power, but had a spring and reach 
which I had come never to expect in sea rowing. 
I believe that a crew could be found here which 
with proper shaping up would win all races. They 
might go through a good deal of rowing gear at 
first. 

26 



THE FISHING 11 

At that time the best of the employed people 
about the fishing, perhaps even the sharemen, 
found no fault if their season's work returned 
them ^100 all told. This was all, there was no 
winter work excepting odd jobs about, getting 
wood and the like, with a little netmaking or 
boatbuilding which ordinarily brought no cash. 
Some men went to the mainland mines, however, 
by the railroad. Latterly such resources, other 
than fishing, have increased, and with winter 
work a successful man may have an income of ^200. 
With comparative prosperity the old unfortunate 
credit system began to decline, and the efforts of 
Dr. Grenfell on the coasts about the straits have 
hastened the same economic end. During the 
period from 1903 to 1909 many small schooners 
were built by fishermen formerly on wages, the 
price of fish being high, and many did extremely 
well, as things go in the island. What the bad 
year of 1909 and the worse one of 1910 will lead 
to, in abandonment of fishing for work in the 
States and in Canada, is yet to be seen. There are 
very many of the former fishermen — virtually 
all Newfoundland men have been fishermen — in 
Boston, generally doing well. 

From Battle Harbor to Port Manvers, more 
than five hundred miles, almost all the coast is 
masked by islands which extend out from five 
to twenty miles in something like an archipelago. 
The "runs" and passages are "drowned valleys," 
formerly with running streams in them, for the 
coast was once higher than now. Generally the 
passages are deep, the water line being well up on the 
slopes of the former hillsides. These slopes of 
the present shores can generally be trusted to 
continue on down some way without change, and 



28 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

schooners bear on sail In unknown waters with a 
freedom astonishing to a stranger. Seventy or 
eighty feet of water is common in the harbors. 
Outside the islands the water may be shallower; 
the debris carried out by the former glaciers from 
the inland ice-cap has levelled up the outer valleys. 

Coming from south the islands north of Battle 
look barren enough, but have, after all, a certain 
greenness, and even small trees and bushes in 
sheltered places. They are gardenlike] In com- 
parison with the gray rock hills farther north. 
Inland there Is a good deal of forest. As we passed 
across some open bay a vista would open showing 
most invitingly the mountains and valleys of the 
inland country. Hubbard and I, much together, 
looked with lingering eyes upon the far sparsely 
forested hills. They were inviting hills to the 
feet, and save the fur hunters of the bays in winter 
no white man had traveled there. To our eyes it 
was the very unexplored land of our dreams. 
Again and again we said: "If we were only there! 
If we were only there, on those hills ! " 

At Indian Harbor we parted for the last time. 
The tragedy of the expedition is history now and 
needs no telling. A good deal of undue criticism 
has descended upon the means and doings of the 
party. They meant to ascend the large North- 
west River, which discharges into Grand Lake at 
a distance of about two hundred miles from 
Indian Harbor, but missed It and took a smaller 
stream. They were traveling on the other side 
of the lake from Northwest River, the mouth of 
which Is masked by an island, and as they had been 
told by local people that It was "up at the end of the 
lake," they kept on accordingly and went up the 
lesser river which flows In at the end. 




Wallace, Hubbard, and Elson 




Undercut Ice, Fanny's Harbor, July 22 



HUBBARD'S JOURNEY 29 

The mistake of itself by no means involved 
disaster to life; in truth the water dangers, at 
least of the large violent river they meant to ascend, 
would have been much the greater. They had 
a gill net, the most serviceable means of support 
in such a region, but it was somewhat worn and 
soon went to pieces. As to the outfit generally, 
I would willingly enter upon the same venture 
with what they had, but it would be necessary 
to have a good game year to get through to 
Ungava. The alternative would be retreat. The 
party happened upon a bad game year, and were 
overtaken by early cold weather in a district 
where native Indians have starved under similar 
circumstances. It is to be noted that winter is the 
only starvation time in Labrador. They might 
well have turned back a little earlier than they 
did, but the main cause of disaster was their being 
wind bound for nearly two weeks while the run- 
ning water behind them was becoming too cold 
for trout, which had left the riffles by the time 
they were on the home road, and starvation 
followed. Their " Windbound Lake " was not large, 
and fate alone could have brought about so 
unfortunate a happening as their being held there 
such a length of time. Not in a hundred seasons, 
it may be thought, would the same thing happen 
again. In lesser sort a certain ill fortune fol- 
lowed the party almost throughout, whatever 
their skill and judgment, as when one has bad 
cards through an evening, though the mathemati- 
cal chances may be a thousand to one against it. 
Small expeditions into uninhabited regions of this 
sort can only be entered upon on certain assump- 
tions, chief of which are that no one is to be ill, no 
one is to have a serious accident, and on the whole 



30 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

good luck Is to attend — better luck than average. 
Bad luck, especially if recurring, is inadmissible. 
Suppose George Elson had turned his ankle fifty 
miles out from Grand Lake on the return, or his 
lumbago had laid him out for a week — the whole 
party would have perished, almost surely. Sup- 
pose Carey and Cole, whose boat was burned 
two hundred and fifty miles up the Hamilton, had 
disabled an ankle. Suppose they had had any 
approach to a run of bad luck after the boat was 
lost. On the other hand, suppose that the Hub- 
bard party had happened to turn back a few hours 
before they did, before the wind came up — which 
might just as well have been — they would all 
have come out at Grand Lake laughing, though 
with an appetite for something besides trout. 
In the matter of criticism let him who has lived 
as long as Hubbard did on a desolate country, 
who has kept as high a spirit, cast the first stone! 
Most of us minor wanderers who have been 
many times out have to thank fortune rather than 
our wits that some unforgotten day or night was 
not our last. 

At Indian Harbor is Dr. Grenfell's northern- 
most hospital, kept open only in summer. His 
work is appreciated by the fishermen, however 
his co-operative stores are viewed by the traders. 
He represents the modern humanities on a coast 
where before they were peculiarly lacking. The 
medical side on the coast now, what with the strong 
staff of Dr. Grenfell, the regular doctor of the mail- 
boat, and the year-round Moravians in the north, 
is fairly in hand. 

At Indian Harbor and about the outer Hamil- 
ton Inlet generally is a striking display of black, 
eruptive rock which has forced its way up through 



GEOLOGY 31 

fissures In the whitish granite. The mainland has 
risen and settled in its long history, apparently with 
the going and coming of its ice-cap overload, not 
to reckon in its immense losses of rock material, 
these largely gained by the adjacent sea floor. 

In places the raised sea beaches are as much 
as five hundred feet above tide, yet the bottoms 
of the present drowned valleys are well below 
water. The fissures which have opened along the 
coastal line of weakness are visible from Belle 
Isle to at least five hundred miles north. The older 
ones are filled level with black trap, planed even 
with the granite by glacial wear. For miles, in 
places, the black bands may be seen stretching 
across the naked rock hills. The larger ones are 
apt to be weathered a little below the bare country 
rock, and the universal fertility of weathered 
lavas is shown by the firm green moss which car- 
pets the sunken strip, as does grass an old road. 
Where the fissure crosses a hill crest a square 
notch may appear on the sky line, cut down ten 
or twenty feet and twenty or forty feet wide. 

The old trap seams were filled with the molten 
upflow at a time when the present level was 
blanketed by a great thickness of rock measures 
now ground away. The later movements, for 
everything is still in motion, are accompanied 
by the opening of "dry" seams, without the erup- 
tive trap. So fresh and clean are the irregular 
walls of some of these newer fissures that one 
wonders if they have not moved a little over night. 
Occasionally the movement reopens an old trap 
seam, the black trap either sticking to one side or 
being wholly loose in blocks. Inland there is 
no sign of these fissures; there the country rock is 
solid. 



32 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

The mailboat visits Rigolet, some hours up 
the Inlet, either going north or coming south. 
From the Hudson's Bay Company post there, the 
Mealy Mountains rise imposing in the southwest, 
looking fully two thousand feet high. The inland 
climate is warm in summer and there is a fair 
show of light spruce on the hills west. Among the 
trees, especially on high slopes, the caribou moss 
gives a distinct whitish appearance to the ground. 
The unattractive adjective "mealy" doubtless 
came from this appearance, but the fine ranges 
deserve a more sounding name. Their Indian 
name also means whitish. Kenamou, the name of 
the large river which drains the mountains from 
south, means " Long Lake." 

From Hamilton Inlet north the shores are 
distinctly more desolate, but the water spaces 
among the islands are wider, and fine bays stretch 
away to the rivers of the mainland, where snow- 
streaked mountains appear somewhat back from 
the coast. Sometimes those mountains show 
fresh snow in midsummer, as in 1908, when the 
ranges north of Hamilton were dazzling white. 

Beyond Hamilton the fishing stations are 
fewer; and with the rising hills of Mokkovik and 
Aillik comes the Moravian Mission field and its 
sparse Eskimo population. All along from the 
Straits the bay people who came aboard showed 
traces of Eskimo descent. Everywhere was a 
little of the blood, showing plainer to the north, 
as the days passed, until at the missions there 
appeared a good proportion of the unmixed race. 
Hopedale, a little north of Mokkovik, is one of 
the older stations, begun more than one hundred 
and forty years ago. 

Almost immemorial now to this strong breed 



THE MISSIONS 33 

of the shore Is the devoted paternal hand which 
has saved them so long from extinction as a race. 
The work is less known and appreciated than it 
deserves. If missionaries anywhere are entitled 
to the crown of achievement in an obscure and 
desolate region it Is these. Their families, as an 
example of peaceful living, dwell under the same 
roof at each of the stations, a test of the human 
relation which if only in the absence of outside 
diversions involves rare qualities. The household 
work Is relieved by Eskimo servants, but the cook- 
ing not so. The way of Eskimo women Is not the 
way of fastidious housewives, and save for some 
recourse to the white daughters of the bays the 
more Intimate work of the household Is done by the 
wives of the missionaries themselves. 

Such peoples as the Eskimo are ever children 
in the presence of advanced races. They are to 
be led when they can be led, restrained by a firm 
hand when for their good; it Is for the worse that 
the means to this end are rarely ample. The influ- 
ences of summer traders and of fishermen, who are 
generally traders too, must bring vexation to the 
Moravian path. Their chief support comes from 
England, where Is the head of the order. A store 
Is kept at each mission, but the mission proper 
receives nothing from It. The uncommercial na- 
ture of even the trading part of the establishment 
is shown by the fact that the balance for the year 
is usually a loss, to be made up by contributions 
from abroad. A set price Is paid for fish; if the 
market falls below it the mission loses, and vice- 
versa, but the people are saved uncertainty. 

The season was rather an early one, but snow 
In streaks and broad patches showed frequently 
along the slopes through July. Pieces of shore ice 



34 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

drifted aground with wind and tide, and about 
sea and shore were fragments of fresh-water ice 
from bergs. To our unwonted eyes the luminous 
turquoise and azure of the thinner forms and 
underwashed caves were of almost startling beauty. 
One must see to realize. Occasional massive 
bergs were grounded along the coast wherever 
the water was deep enough to let them in. Seven 
eighths of their mass is under water. They are 
apt to have long projections, underwater capes or 
tables that cannot be seen in windy weather, and 
the steamer keeps well clear. It is told that once 
a large steamer was caught amidships by a rising 
tongue of ice, as a berg turned partly over, and 
raised bodily out of water. By one of those 
touches of luck that ice navigators have to have 
she tilted forward, slid oif, and was able to go 
along. Summer bergs are rather well avoided. 
A captain would lose his rating if he went near a 
summer berg unnecessarily and anything hap- 
pened. Parsons is careful about them; it is fairly 
safe to say that he will never lose his rating, at 
least in that way. 

The bergs are dazzling in the sunshine. In 
a photograph, when taken near, water and sky 
are apt to come out almost black by contrast. 
One can scarcely give them little enough time. 
As the summer goes on they become opaque, dead 
white, in dull days, but a stab of the oar brings 
up on hard blue ice at the very surface. As they 
waste or lose fragments they change level, perhaps 
turn over, and the smooth, wave-washed band 
and groove of their old water line appears slanting 
at one angle or another with the water. One side 
of the berg, revolved up from long submergence in 
the warming sea, may be rounded and smooth, 



ICE 35 

with many clear, blue veins; these are regelated 
fissures opened in its progress down the uneven 
Greenland valleys. Another face, lately rifted, 
may be of sharp crystalline fracture, texture such 
as only living crystals have. Indeed the bergs 
are gigantic crystalline masses, pure elemental 
separations, the like of which neither land nor 
sea has to show in any other form. 

Although, when close by, the tall walls and 
pinnacles of ice running up one or two hundred 
feet are wonderfully imposing, the ice is most 
beautiful — and at times the tall ice comes near 
to being very beauty itself — when distance 
heightens the shadows and gives effect to its shape. 
Some bergs appear fragments of elemental struc- 
tures, at least their squared blocks; in some 
lingers the greater design, foundation, plinth, and 
shaft, and, if indeed a little aslant, the icicled 
cornice. Man's architecture in all its forms is 
hinted at, and often the forms of living creatures, 
natural or grotesque, but the spirit of the ice is 
mainly architectural: the gods of the North had 
their temples, and these are their fragments. The 
bergs are Nature's Greek phase. 

Yet, ice and all, the question whether Labrador 
is not the safest rock coast in the world to navigate 
is worth mentioning. This is not merely from 
its innumerable shelter places and deep channels, 
ground out smooth by glaciers, but also in summer, 
from its usually moderate winds and smooth sea. 
A really heavy sea I have never observed north 
of Belle Isle, not such as one sees on home coasts. 
In this is compensation for having ice about, 
for bergs do a good deal toward breaking up the 
ocean swell. Although there may not be more 
than four or five bergs in sight at one time, from 



36 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the steamer run, the polar stream is from one to 
two hundred miles wide, and somewhere, beyond 
sight, there are more and larger ones. The tops 
of some of them look to be a half mile long, — 
majestic, slow-moving islands, showing just above 
the horizon. It is small ice that can come near 
the shore. 

What the places, what the granite ways, 
where such great masses may be launched without 
breaking, may well be wondered. No matter how 
even are the slopes, the outer edge of the ice would 
naturally tend to float up, with tremendous 
force, as it became submerged. Upon all the 
glacial frontage of the long Greenland coast 
there must be few places where the greater ice 
islands can take the sea whole. Some one re- 
markable conjunction of slopes may yet appear 
where the thing can happen, the more reasonably 
that such bergs are not common. Yet, after all, 
the structural resistance of such bergs is not to be 
underrated. If floating two or three hundred 
feet above water its total height would be near 
two thousand feet, and its cross section nearly 
square. The great tables of the Antarctic, larger 
than any of the north, launch themselves success- 
fully in great numbers. Such marvelous debouche- 
ments into deep water as prevail in Greenland 
occur nowhere else in the northern hemisphere. 
The great Alaskan glaciers discharge into shallow 
water on the submerged continental shelf. There 
is no tall ice on that coast. 

With all the thousands of schooners that visit 
the coast, and many larger craft, life is seldom lost 
by drowning. For one thing, so favorable are the 
slopes that a craft is likely to drive actually 
ashore and permit one to get out. Some schooners 



THE SCHOONERS 37 

are wrecked, they are mostly soft wood aflPairs, 
but I am not sure that a summer wreck has brought 
a drowning since I have been on the coast. 

Long periods of calm prevail, more especially 
in the north. The fishermen tell of glassy days 
at Mugford, and north, which run on until they 
lose time, becalmed, which they can ill afford. 
Of course the open sea is never quite flat, for unless 
in strong land winds there is always some heave. 

When blows come on, as they do, it is not 
an uncommon thing for a crew to put out all the 
ground tackle available and get ashore, especially 
when the alternative is lying in a harbor with 
other schooners to windward. These, of course, 
may drag and smash their way through the fleet. 
This practice of abandonment has a doubtful 
look at first; certainly it is not sticking to one's 
ship. ^ It must be a curious sight to see twenty 
or thirty schooners tossing to the wind, deserted, 
and the crews scattered among the shacks on shore 
hugging the fire. But they are right. When there 
is anything better to be done they do it, and they 
know. 

They know the sea, and whatever can be done 
upon it they can do as few can. I have not sailed 
much with them, but something of the ordinary 
day's doings of the fishing schooners came to me 
during a little run, in 1907. I wanted to get from 
Hopedale to Davis Inlet, some fifty miles, and 
after a good deal of visiting about such craft as 
were in the harbor I got Captain Eliot, of Twil- 
lingate, to take me as far on my way as he might 
happen to go. His schooner was the Cambria. 
He would not bind himself further, for he was 
looking for fish, and his whole voyage, his year's 
fortunes, might turn on his seizing upon some 



38 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

chance opportunity to locate in a good "berth." 
He could neither be bound to my course nor have 
my concerns on his mind. But he agreed not to 
put me off in a dangerous sea. Several other 
northbound captains had refused to take me at all; 
though well enough disposed, they could not be 
bothered; mind and craft must be wholly unbound. 

Captain Eliot towed out of the harbor with a 
rowboat to a streak of light air outside and got 
me on some twenty miles that day, to Windy 
Tickle, through the region of islands and bays 
known as Malta. Once during the forenoon, 
while most of the men were below, "mugging up" 
on hard bread and tea, there came a hard thump. 
The men questioned its being a rock, and mentioned 
ice. No one went up, but it was remarked that 
she struck hard. Presently they did go up — for 
whatever purpose. Soon the skipper and another 
came down, without comment, and we beat along 
in the fresh breeze, the water land-sheltered and 
flat. When I suggested to Eliot that he must have 
sailed these waters many times, he replied, "No, 
not as far as this." Still he knew pretty well 
where to go. "When we have been a time or 
two over a route we know it well enough to sail it." 

He was watching everywhere for fish. Here 
and there along the islands or in far bays were 
lying other schooners. Off he would go in the 
rising breeze, for a speck of a hull or a masthead 
showing over some low island, down overboard 
into the boat towing behind, and away for a talk 
and a visit. His purpose was to find out that the 
other skipper was getting fish, if he was ; the latter's, 
as a rule, to conceal the fact if he could. No crew 
on fish wants neighbors. Boats coming in from 
the traps were scanned, boats jigging vainly to 



ON THE CAMBRIA 39 

find a "sign" of fish were noted. Nothing es- 
caped observation. A boat low down with fish 
would be a certain find. But it was early in the 
season, fish were scarce, and all the schooners 
floated high. Eliot had not a fish aboard and was 
keen accordingly. "What's the use of talking 
with the skippers.?" I asked, "they won't tell you 
the truth." "I can tell pretty well by the way 
they talk," he answered. Almost always, I think, 
he could tell; there were a good many indications 
to go by. So we went, often several miles about 
to one ahead, finding nothing worth stopping for. 
That night we lay in deep, precipitous Windy Tickle. 
Setting off as the tide began to fall in the morn- 
ing we went fast upon rock bottom. The schooner 
being light the matter was probably no worse in 
any case than the loss of a tide, twelve hours, but 
Eliot, acting with great energy and steadiness, 
putting off a boat anchor and keeping his sails 
drawing full, got off in twenty minutes. I had 
thrown up my hands in his behalf, given up, and 
told him so; the tide was falling and it seemed 
useless to try long. 

We went off the rock with wind and tide carry- 
ing us rapidly, the long rope to the boat anchor 
paying out fast overside, spinning up from the 
deck in jumping loops and coils that were dangerous 
to go near. In order to save the line and kedge 
a man sprang to the job of fastening a float to the 
end of the line before it ran out overboard. Re- 
markable to see was his clever fence with the 
snatching coils, risky to approach, and the time 
was short; but before it was too late he actually 
cuffed a hitch around the float without ever really 
laying hold of the line, and the trick was done. 
There had not been an excited word throughout, 



40 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

unless from me, much less swearing. When I 
talked, afterward, "We expect to be on bottom 
some," was all the skipper said, though he owned 
the boat. 

After the kedge and line had been picked up 
we moved for the open reaches beyond the tickle, 
under full sail. But we were not done with old 
Windy yet. I had gone below and was talking 
with the cook in the large space forward when a 
low boom came from beneath, followed by an- 
other a little louder, with some jar, though the 
schooner kept on — we were rolling along on loose 
boulders that lay on the level rock bottom at 
the head of the tickle. I looked at the square of 
light above at the top of the ladder with an impulse 
to climb, then at the cook, who seemed steady 
enough; and the cook so taking it, I did not care 
to be the one to bolt. Several times we struck, 
the boom sounding rather impressive in the 
empty hold. After staying a decent time below I 
went up, presently remarking to Eliot as to our too 
easterly position. "There isn't hardly water 
enough for her at this tide," he observed, but 
slacked no sail. Then we ran into the open bay 
beyond. 

Eliot had never been there before. When he 
asked once where to go I could say little, having 
been over that water only in small boats. "We 
have mostly to go by the slope of the shores, in 
places where we haven't been," he remarked, 
and in answer to a question, "Yes, we often have 
to go where we don't know the ground, when we 
are beating." But there was no indifference; 
going up the run there were always three pairs 
of eyes, side by side, scanning the water ahead. 
The intentness of the three lookouts never fal- 




The Cook of the Cambria 



Overturning Ice, Near Voisey's Bay, 1905 



ON THE CAMBRIA 41 

tered, yet it seemed to me useless to look for any 
but very high shoals. 

In a few miles we drew up on a schooner ahead. 

"There's a pilot for us," said Eliot. "Are you 

sure that she knows where she is going.?" I asked. 

"He's a neighbor of mine and knows this ground," 

he answered. With shortened sail we followed 

on in the track of the other schooner. I should 

not have known that Eliot had been anxious, but 

I now saw his relief. Five miles from Davis 

Inlet the pilot schooner turned sharply, more than 

half round, and went off down a long passage toward 

the open sea. I happened to be just taking some 

tea and hard bread below, but before I got started 

on it Eliot put his head into the gangway and asked 

if I was willing to get off there. I certainly did 

not care to — the wind was strong and there was 

an annoying slop on; moreover, I wanted my tea 

and bite, my "mug-up," before going to work. 

But Eliot had already done a great deal for me, 

there was a question of sporting blood, and in a few 

minutes I was overside and bobbing about in my 

canoe, empty and rueful, but with honor saved, 

the schooner off down the passage like a bird to 

overhaul her pilot. My mug-up came two or 

three hours later, with some Eskimo I knew, who 

were camping on the "Red Point" below Davis 

Inlet Post. It had been a vicious wind and hard 

rowing, though happily the run was landlocked. 



Chapter IV 
FANNY'S HARBOR 

EARLY the 8 th of July, 1903 , we ran from Hope- 
dale to Fanny's Harbor, and I scrambled 
up on Tom Spracklin's stage, to stay longer 
than I then imagined. Tom stared a little, but agreed 
to take me In — It was a matter of course. Afterward 
the people of the place said I looked a poor risk, 
for a person knocking about, and what with leav- 
ings from old malaria and the marks of a coldish 
voyage with evil ventilation, perhaps it was so. 
Cod had not come in, but Spracklln had a gill net 
out for sea trout, and we did well for food. 

Fanny's is on the east side of Cape Harrigan 
Island, with a short, narrow entrance, which has, 
of course, a rock in the middle. "There is always 
a harbor rock," the fishermen say. The harbor 
is small and rocky, but the shore is low to the west, 
where are flat moss tundra and the shallow dead 
ponds common to all bog places in the North. 
Tom's literary imagination, which I was to appre- 
ciate later, led him to remark on there being "a 
million geese over there in the fall." There are 
a good many, dropping in from north on September 
days. 

The island is three or four miles across. Out 
to sea are shoals and rocks, and here the pack 
ice makes its July stand against all craft. This 
was an early season and the pack just let us in, 
stringing off to sea for good by nightfall. In 1905 
it was strong the 22d of July, and the Virginia 
had to turn back south, after some hours of heavy 

42 



CAPE HARRIGAN ISLAND 43 

ramming; she had to go into dry dock afterward 
at St. John's, to touch up her screw. The western 
hills of the island, gray and desolate, are six or 
seven hundred feet high, and offer a good lookout. 
Soon settled, I took my rifle and paddled over 
to the level moss ground around which the hills 
circle. The head wind was almost too much for 
the single paddle, and my progress was made a 
subject of depressing comment after I got back. 

The island is Arctic enough, and was to me a 
new utterly northern world, none the less so for the 
bergs always in the offing. Just out of steamer 
confinement, I walked with quick feet. What 
looked like grass, in the lower lands, was moss. 
Much of the footing was velvety and firm, even 
on the bogs, though in places they were like bogs 
everywhere. The early flowers were many, some 
with stems an inch long, some less; the best quite 
like our bluet in shape, but a marvelous pink in 
color, and growing in dense patches the size of 
one's hand. It is all but stemless. An Eskimo 
woman has called it, from description, the Irok, 
but there may have been a mistake of identity. 

In damp places the white blossoms of the bake 
apple or cloudberry showed above the moss, and 
where it was drier those of the familiar service- 
berry and of the northern blueberry, clinging flat 
to the ground. On the hills were scattered bould- 
ers, lichened on sheltered faces, and little plats 
and streaks of moss, though at a distance the hills 
appeared to be of absolutely lifeless gray rock. 
That there should be animal life in such sheer 
desolation seemed out of the question, still less 
that it should turn out a rabbit pasture, but near 
the top of the highest hill I came upon my first 
Arctic hare. They are invisible enough when not 



44 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

moving, even on the bare rock. It was as if one of 
the smaller boulders had risen near my feet and 
hopped away, and its size was astonishing. It 
would not do to say that it looked as big as a sheep, 
whatever the fact, but it certainly was con- 
spicuous. Captain Bartlett, of the Roosevelt, tells 
me of weighing them in the far North at sixteen 
or seventeen pounds. A good New England fox 
weighs only twelve pounds. The summer hare 
is mainly blue gray. In winter the tips of the 
ears remain black, but the rest is white, a wonder- 
ful long dense fur, white to the very skin. Our 
common white hare of the forests is brown below 
the tips of the hair, and the animal looks small 
and ill clad by comparison. The Arctic hare lives 
chiefly on the coast islands, where there is least 
danger of wolves and foxes. Its superiorities 
extend eminently to the table, but the beautiful 
skin, handsomer to my mind that that of the 
Arctic fox, is not durable, and brings only five or 
ten cents at the store. 

At about ninety yards the hare stopped and 
I fired. He went off holding up his fore leg, and 
for a long time I followed on, finally to a rock 
pile, a natural refuge. I was sorry to leave him 
maimed and took a great deal of trouble trying to 
recover him. What puzzled me was that there 
was no trace anywhere of blood or hair. I gave 
up quite depressed, and it was months before I 
learned that this hare frequently runs on two 
legs, holding up its front paws. The shot was 
doubtless a miss, more probably as I had never 
fired that rifle before. 

A large gray loon I shot floated out with the 
tide. There were horned larks blowing about 
the rocks, and a small, slaty bird with a striped 



CAPE HARRIGAN ISLAND 45 

head. Between two small ponds a muskrat was 
carrying grass or roots up a little brook. There 
were some flocks of ducks out of reach, and many- 
gulls. Next to the hare the most notable creature 
of the day was a great brown eider duck which fairly 
lifted me by thundering up from between my feet. 
It skimmed far over the tundra like a shearwater. 
There were six eggs, laid on a filmy mat of down; 
the nest was in a dry place several rods from water. 
Although not getting the hare was a disap- 
pointment to me, one is not always sorry for 
shooting badly, and so it turned out on a ramble 
of the second morning. In a little cliff not far 
from the harbor lived some ravens. It was a 
convenient and prosperous location for them, for 
their home ledge was near the harbor and stage, 
and the leavings from the fishing kept them in 
plenty. The fishing being scarcely on as yet there 
appeared nothing of doubtful quality for them to 
eat, and as some one had told me that raven's 
meat was white and good, unlike crow, I thought 
it a good chance to try one. They were not shy, 
but the wind was coming in quick, pushing gusts, 
and my first shot was a miss. The bird took no 
notice, being occupied in balancing itself in the 
wind, with many flirts, but presently flew a few 
yards to a sheltered shelf. As I prepared to try 
again a second raven lit beside him, and I paused 
to observe their meeting. Ravens have a dignity 
absent in the crow, and the trait was manifest. 
For some time I watched them. Their fine 
unconsciousness of being observed, though I was 
near and in plain sight, was as that of high per- 
sonages. I might not have existed, was not 
even accorded notice as an intruder. I began to feel 
uncomfortable. Their personable presence, their 



46 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

affectionate courtesy toward each other, became 
too much for my purpose, and before long, 
thankful that my shot had missed, I took myself 
away. 

That afternoon I went southwest a couple of 
miles, across the low ground, and over a pass 
which leads to the schooner anchorage in Windy 
Tickle. There was a little scrub spruce in the 
pass, and dwarf birch, the "deerbush" which 
caribou like so well in summer. It is an agreeable 
bush to the eye, with shiny, roundish leaves, 
neatly scalloped, and the size of a dime. The bush 
has the general habit of our home laurel and alder. 

There had been quite a wind, and consequently 
no trouble from mosquitoes. Turning back the 
breeze lessened, moving with me at about my 
own speed. I had no gloves or other defense, and 
shortly mosquitoes began to be annoying. Before 
long they had grown to a thick swarm, raging like 
wasps. I had supposed I knew all about mosqui- 
toes, from many years of trout fishing. On a still 
evening on the Bersimis we had, Indians and all, 
been wretched in spite of ten punk fires going. 
But now I became almost frightened. I had 
been tired, walking all day after the inaction of the 
voyage, and sorry to have to walk back across the 
yielding bog land, but that matter of regret soon 
vanished from my mind, and forthwith I took to 
a hard run, thrashing with a branch and only 
wishing that my other hand was not occupied 
with my gun. Winded, I would turn and walk 
slowly back into the breeze until good for another 
run. Eight hundred of the enemy, as I reckoned, 
followed into the canoe and kept the affair going 
while I crossed the half mile of harbor. One has 
to have both hands in paddling, unfortunately. 



CAPE HARRIGAN ISLAND 47 

I had had my lesson, — was "blooded." Never 
from that day — and for some years following I 
passed much of the summer in that country — 
have I gone away from shelter without special 
means of protection. 

So with each new companion from south, 
there is the same assurance based on past experi- 
ence, the same onset when mosquito conditions 
arrive, the same half panic, and the acquisition 
of a permanent memory. None ever forgets. 

As to getting over the twenty miles to Davis 
Inlet, Spracklin would have been glad enough 
to take me, but was short handed. He thought 
some of the "Labradorians" ought to come along; 
however, if not, he would rig his jack, which only 
needed a bit of calking, and get me over. Mean- 
while I talked to Bella Lane, over at Jim Spracklin's 
place, across the harbor entrance; she lived in the 
next bay and knew the way of things. Some 
Naskapi were down in June, and would be in 
again soon. Opetik Bay was the place, fifty 
miles north. There seemed to be reason for 
thinking they had some large lake not far inland 
where they summered. The near lake, in the end, 
proved a myth, but Bella, who by the way had 
looks, was rather nearer right than most other 
coast people I have asked about Indians. The 
inland is none of theirs. 

I was rather restless, but in a day or two 
Labradorians came, in the persons of Sam Brom- 
field and Sandy Geer, and would take me to the 
Inlet. Their price was high, but they were stiff. 
Long afterward Sam's conscience stirred, and he 
told me that, in what was certainly a neighborly 
spirit, Spracklin had coached him up, — the 
American was "bound to get across." 



48 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Yet at nearly the same time I must have qualified 
as a neighbor too, in some imperceptible way, 
for from that day on Spracklin's kindness to me 
was unfailing, I fell often upon his hospitalities 
and for years was as glad to see his face as any 
on the coast. 

It was late in the day when we got off, towing 
the canoe in an uneasy slop. For a couple of 
miles we were outside the cape, heading for an 
island called the Devil's Thumb. The name is 
not so farfetched; the outline of a bent back 
thumb can be imagined, and for the rest the name 
of his Highness and one part or another of his 
anatomy is always in order where rocks and out- 
door people are. The Thumb is unspeakably 
barren. It is the seaward member of the cape 
group. Traces of lichen scurf show on the land- 
ward side, but facing the north the high, steep 
hill is utterly naked, a monument to the incon- 
ceivable winter gales. In a more tolerable latitude 
the entire rock might yet be ground up for fer- 
tilizer, for it appears to the eye to be wholly of 
whitish or pink feldspar. 

For a while we were under the sheer cliffs of 
the main island, and Sam watched the puffs 
nervously. Well that he was undersparred, as 
all open-boat people go when their shores are high, 
— and few shores are otherwise on the Labrador. 
His two stout masts, unstayed, were ready to be 
jerked from their sockets and laid down if the 
"lop" became too sharp. The relief to a boat 
in a seaway when this is done is remarkable. 
The local rig is simple. The after sail generally 
has a sprit and boom, the foresail a sprit only, 
and there is often a bit of a jib. Among the cod 
fishermen tanned sails prevail. I have wondered 




At Red Point 




Davis Inlet 



SAM BROMFIELD 49 

if there was an esthetic side to this, beyond the 
mere matter of wear. Certainly the eye does not 
demand the white of sails in the North — more 
white on a sea where shining ice and ghostly fog 
are one's lifelong enemies — not near to, at any 
rate. White sails may be harmonious, but when 
one is satiated with ice upon ice, and thick weather, 
and pickled air from the bergs and salt ice-pans 
of Baffin's Bay, one doesn't mind resting the eye 
upon a bit of warm brown here and there. 

Sam's mind eased as we made the wider waters 
and lower shores beyond the Thumb. The long 
sculling oar took up the work as the wind failed 
and talk began. Sam loquens is Sam in his glory, 
altogether to my profit on that trip; it took some 
chilly hours to get to the Davis Inlet Post, and by 
the time we were there I knew a good deal about 
the region. The conversation was pleasantly 
personal in places, Sam waving gently at his long 
stern oar and I bunched in wraps beside him. His 
all-round gray whiskers gave him age enough to 
make me naturally deferential. As we progressed 
he looked down at me sympathetically. "I sup- 
pose you are about my age, about sixty?" A 
little aback I finally came in, "Well — er, — not 
quite that, yet." He acquiesced, perhaps doubt- 
fully. It was rather hard, for I still had fifteen 
years to go. There was more tact in his question 
than appeared, so I learned later. Only fifty- 
five himself, he had placed his age higher to save 
my venerable feelings. 

We passed Kutalik or Massacre Island close 
and were off the Mountaineers' Rock, a small 
affair awash at low tide. Sam told its tale. In 
old days when warfare between the Eskimo and 
Mountaineers of the inland was unrelenting the 



50 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Eskimo of the neighborhood were camped on the 
smooth moss ground of the western side of Kuta- 
Hk, where their old rings of tent stones are still 
visible. While the men were off hunting Indians 
descended upon the women and children, killed 
them all, threw them into the sea, and departed. 
As the Eskimo men were returning one of them saw 
something floating and threw his spear, finding 
then that he had transfixed the boot and foot of 
his own wife, killed with the rest. It was late 
in the day, and the Mountaineers' Rock lay toward 
the sunset, some three miles away. The Eskimo 
noticed that the rock seemed higher than usual. 
As the tide came to its height they saw the Moun- 
taineers leave the flooded rock and paddle up the 
bay beyond to the mainland. They had been 
concealed under their canoes, placed close to- 
gether, and it was these which gave the rock its 
unusual elevation. The Eskimo followed them 
after dark, surrounded their camp, and speared 
them to a man. 

Some say that Eskimo men as well as women 
were floating in the water that day. At all 
events the story shows how things went between 
the two races, from Maine, perhaps, around the 
northern shores to Alaska. They have little taste 
for each other to this day, although white influence 
at the shores has ended the fighting. There is no 
doubt that, man for man, with the primitive weap- 
ons, the Eskimo was at no disadvantage; but the 
Indians acquired guns first and gradually forced 
the shore dwellers out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
and to the north. 

The Indians' families, back on the country, 
were probably not much exposed in the fighting, 
while those of the Eskimo were, as they could be 



KUTALIK 51 

easily found along the shores. Yet it is not likely 
that the initiative has always been with the 
Indians. The two main causes of trouble among 
simple people in the world at least have been 
infringement of territory and woman stealing; 
and the Eskimo, while at a disadvantage from 
their shore habitat, have doubtless had some 
share in aggression and its proceeds. There are 
some Indian-looking individuals among the Es- 
kimo. The case of Indian-Eskimo adoption, on 
the other side, is strong. Maine Indians show 
Eskimo peculiarities of skull. A Cree I traveled 
with in 1909 remembered that the old people on 
Hudson's Bay used to tell of adopting Eskimo 
women and children; and the practice, broadly, 
of adoption from among their captives, even of 
men, has been widespread among tribes of the 
temperate area. The well-known fact that at the 
height of their power the Iroquois tribes had as 
much foreign blood, chiefly Algonquian, as of 
their own, is in accord with the continental ten- 
dency. 

To-day, nevertheless, it is rather hard to 
imagine a pure Indian of northeast Labrador 
marrying an Eskimo. Their antipathy seems 
racial. The Eskimo seems to regard the Indian 
as a hateful predatory creature of the wolf or 
panther kind. The Indian view is not so easy to 
assume; the Eskimo revolts him a little; his dirt, 
his lack of dignity, his diet, his smell. The Indian 
has given to him what to his own mind is almost 
as bad a name as he could, for the word Eskimo 
is Algonquian for Eater of the Raw. The Indian 
is particular in having his food cooked. 

Late in the winter the Eskimo of the coast go 
inland for caribou nearly to the height of land, 



52 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

but only In strong parties, so far as I can learn. 
Many of the white or partly white shore people 
tell of going into the interior one or two hundred 
miles, always in winter, but really they do not 
go far, and "signs of Indians" are mentioned with 
bated breadth. Some of the shore people are pretty 
well acquainted with the individual Indians now, 
for the latter are peaceable enough at the shore, 
but a shore person hunting alone at a distance 
inland would, I think, be made uncomfortable if 
discovered. 

Sam was wholly interesting about the bay life, 
the hunting for deer and seals, the trapping for 
fur. The walrus is rare now; sometimes a strag- 
gler comes along from Chidley way, and sometimes 
still a white bear. Black bears are common 
game, though not too plenty; silver foxes, the 
dream of all Labrador hunters, are caught in some 
numbers, and Sam had had his share of them. 
There were otters and some few martens in the 
valleys near the coast. 

Summer was given up to fishing. The mid- 
summer fishing was for sea trout and salmon, 
which lasted until the cod came in. All the 
people of the coast were hunters and fishermen, 
there was no attempt at planting this ground; 
they lived by rifle, net, and trap, only the cod 
coming by the hook. 

Open boating is apt to be a cold, long-drawn 
matter in northern waters, and such was this voy- 
age with Sam. The last of the trip to the Inlet 
rests much with the tide: if it is falling, strong wind 
is needed to get up; if rising, all goes well in any 
case. The post, with its flagpole and row of white 
buildings, shipshape as Hudson's Bay Company 
stations always are, is backed by quite a hillside 



DAVIS INLET 53 

of small, dense spruce. The larger growth has 
been culled out in the course of years. 

At the landing we were met pleasantly by 
Stuart Cotter, the master of the post. The arrival 
of the winter's mail, which we had brought along, 
was an event hardly second to any in the Hudson's 
Bay Company calendar. Cotter made little ex- 
pression as we handed it to him, but in truth was 
a little dazed at finding his hands actually upon 
it. He was a young man, a bachelor withal, and 
had many friends in the outside world. As we 
stood on the wharf, the back of his neck became 
pretty well covered with large mosquitoes, — the 
post is a fierce place for them, what with fresh 
water, grass, and dogs. I told him about them 
as we passed up from the wharf, but the tension 
of the occasion, the coming of the mail and a 
strange visitor together, was too much; uncon- 
scious, he carried them all into the house. 



Chapter V 
INDIANS 

WE talked until one in the morning, though 
I reminded Cotter more than once that 
he had not opened his mail. During 
the rest of the night I waked enough once or twice 
to notice a crack of light under my door coming 
from his room. Referring to it at breakfast it 
turned out he had been reading his mail all night 
and had not gone to bed at all! His predecessor 
at the post was not otherwise, he could not sleep 
the night after getting his annual mail. This 
for Cotter, a strong young fellow of thirty, who 
ought to sleep well under any circumstances, was 
rather notable; but, after all, winter is long any- 
where north, and more than long in such a place 
of limited society. 

We had sea trout of two or three pounds, 
tasting between winninish and brook trout, for 
breakfast, and barren ground caribou for 
dinner, killed in winter and kept in a snowdrift 
still visible across the run; the venison was par- 
ticularly good. Alongside the cold-storage drift 
was a conspicuous vertical fissure up and down a 
cliff, accepted as a convenient noon mark, being 
exactly south from the post. The "run" lies 
east and west here, and is just a sea mile wide. 

Now came real travel. I should have had a 
sad time that year without a canoe; there was not 
another on all the coast from Belle Isle to Chidley. 
It was hard to get into the interior as it was, for 
want of help. This seemed strange to me, for 

54 




Daniel's Summer House 




Daniel's Dogs 



DAVIS INLET 55 

there were enough people along, all hunters; but 
even now, after seven years' visits to the coast, 
there is only one person, and he a boy, whom I 
should think of taking inland. The worth-while 
men are busy fishing in summer, and at best have 
no taste for the heat and flies of the back country; 
still less, and this is a serious matter, for the evil 
presences of Eskimo theology. Under all, more- 
over, is the feeling that the Indians regard their 
presence in the country with disfavor. 

There was a good deal of discussion as to what 
could be done, and in the end Cotter turned me 
over to John Oliver for safe conduct to Opetik 
Bay, where the Indians were likely to come out 
soon. They thought a man up there named 
George might go with me. In this they spoke 
rather faintly, but I felt hopeful enough; any 
human with legs could at least go along and be 
company; I should see a little of the country 
anyway, and need not risk missing the Indians by 
going farther than we could trace out their usual 
route. Oliver, my present boatman, was a half 
Eskimo, of a good sort, way-wise from having seen 
the world, possibly too much of it, with a party 
of natives who had been exhibited at the Buffalo 
World's Fair and in European capitals. Tips of 
real gold had not spoiled him as a seal hunter, 
and he was a good companion. 

Travel goes much by tides in the calm summer 
days. We dropped west with a current along the 
run for a few miles before dark to the summer 
hut of an Eskimo named Daniel, for the Moravians 
have given their people Bible names along here. 
More lately, and better counseled, they are bringing 
in the native names again. We went ashore. 
Sleeping in an open boat is not so bad, but things 



56 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ashore promised better, and my confidence in the 
housekeeping of Mrs. Daniel — Mrs. Daniel Noah 
it was in full — was not misplaced. The little 
round-faced daughter was winning and pretty. 
A sealy flavor prevailed, not disagreeable in moder- 
ation. One's first-time approach to a really 
unmodified Eskimo in a warm day is apt to be a 
staggering experience. Small sea trout, split 
and gashed, were drying on a line; the larger ones 
were salted and sold to the post. Fish spawn, 
like slim strings of dried apples, was hanging about, 
and a bunch of small caribou horns decorated 
the gable. 

The floor was the smooth rock, a good bed for 
us visitors. Cracks in the walls let in plenty of air, 
and for the first time since leaving St. John's I 
had air enough. Intentional ventilation is rare 
in the northern world, for mosquitoes would come 
in with air in summer, and cold in winter; the word 
ventilation is unknown. 

Trout, of course, of shining memory, were the 
breakfast, with bread and tea. A number of 
beautiful young dogs met us outside, fairly leaping 
over each other at the sound of Daniel's voice. 
They quieted down, scattering about sleepily in 
the sun, and mosquitoes began to settle upon them. 
Relief came, however, in a pretty way. A hand- 
some sparrow, the White-crowned, flew down, and 
hopping up to a dog whose head was conveniently 
low, cleared every mosquito, one by one, from his 
face. The dog did not move, though he might 
easily have snapped up the bird. The animal's 
face done with, the bird jumped upon its out- 
stretched body and rambled over it, leaving no 
mosquito behind. The Eskimo call the bird 
Kutshituk, ''fly eater." 



AT JIM LANE'S 57 

Daniel went along with us In his own boat to 
his winter house, some seven or eight miles, 
cracking away now and then at the loons with a 
worn-out .44 rifle, and shooting very badly. His 
house Is a log house, on a passage spoken of as 
Daniel's Rattle, where rock cod are abundant 
in winter, and where, no less important to an 
Eskimo, all the winter travel of the coast passes 
the door. A rattle, by the way, is a passage where 
the current Is so swift as to be noisy. We nooned 
at Jim Lane's place, Opetik Bay. He, like 
other people along, objected to taking pay for his 
hospitality, being only too glad to have company, 
but I prevailed In this; It would not do for me, 
who might not come along again, to leave them 
the worse In pocket for my passing. Among 
themselves the meals with each other may balance 
up in the long run. 

While we were eating, Jim came In and asked 
if I wanted to see a white partridge. Turning out 
with the camera I found a willow ptarmigan 
walking about, unconcerned save with the manage- 
ment of a new-hatched family. She paid no 
attention to people or dogs. At a distance of 
thirty or forty feet I stopped with the camera. 
"You can go nearer," said Jim, "she won't mind 
you." Indeed she remained perfectly unconcerned, 
and my last snap was taken at six feet. Jim said 
she had been about the place for some time. 
Considering the natural nervousness of hen birds 
with chicks I thought the showing of fearlessness 
remarkable, and a light not only upon Jim's ways 
but those of his dogs. Jim looked his part, but 
he must have had a wonderful relation with those 
high-tailed Eskimo dogs. Such dogs snap up a 
cat or other small creature in short order ordi- 



58 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

narily, and by reputation are a savage lot; but 
after this episode and that of the Kutshituk I 
began to have views of my own. 

Wind carried us against tide five or six miles to 
George's, where the family were salting away trout 
at the rate of a barrel a day, fetching four dollars. 
The very small house was placed upon an island 
rock, to be away from mosquitoes, if somewhat 
vainly. Skins of loons indicated the prevailing 
kind of waterfowl; Opetik is one of their favorite 
places. On this coast everything birdlike is eaten, 
loons, gulls, owls, and guillemots. We had had 
eiders' eggs at Lane's; at this place there were sea 
pigeons' eggs, better yet. The pigeon, merely 
a little black diver, produces not only a large su- 
perior egg, but so much meat and such good meat 
that its being about everywhere is surprising. 
Its neat webbed feet, done in red, and used as a 
tail in flying, together with the white patches on 
its wing coverts, lend it quite a distinction when 
in the air. It nests in holes among the rocks, high 
above water, and turns white in winter. 

George doubted taking on much of a job, 
but would go along to William's, up the bay, and 
we would talk it over. We were there, at the head 
of the bay, before night, at the foot of picturesque 
bare hills and mountains rising toward the in- 
terior. William (Edmunds), a virile part Eskimo 
whom I have always liked and respected, could 
speak pretty good English, and that evening we 
talked over all things. He was getting trout and 
some salmon, but said his place was not as good 
for iish as that of his brother David in Shung-ho 
Bay, which we had traversed without crossing 
over to the house. David caught in good years 
eighty or a hundred barrels of trout, and in marks- 




From Daniel's House 




Looking across Davis Inlet 



OPETIK 59 

manship, hunting skill, and personal strength- 
was fairly king of the region. He and Lane were 
peers in a way, and old hunting companions. 
David had been known to put his sled after a 
running herd of caribou and kill seven with seven 
cartridges while dogs and deer were doing their 
best. Wonderful shots are some of these part- 
Eskimo bay men, who use the rifle on seals' heads 
and waterfowl from their uneasy boats. 

We canvassed the matter of going inland. 
William ought to have known the Indian route 
well, but whether he gave George the benefit of his 
knowledge is doubtful. The Indians generally 
came out at William's place and left their canoes, 
taking his sailboat the rest of the way to the post. 
He or his son would do the navigating, and by 
virtue of sails, oars, and their familiar knowledge 
of tide currents, the Indians paddling in numbers 
when necessary, night or day, they commonly 
made fast time. Sometimes they made a stop at 
Lane's. His sister, Mrs. Tom Geer, who lives 
there now, tells how well the Indian women cook, 
on the rare occasions when they come to the coast. 

George finally agreed to go as far as I cared to; 
and off we went in the morning. "I'm in a canoe! 
I'm in a canoe!" he sang, between funk and ex- 
hilaration, as we moved away from the group at 
the landing; it was in truth his first canoe ride. 
The tide took us two or three miles up to a little 
stream called by the Indians Mushaiiau Sheho, 
Barren Ground River, and we had a good start 
by luncheon time, when our leisurely meal was 
graced by an excellent piece of bear meat William 
had given us to start on. George was one of the 
few white men of the region, trimly built, of a 
sailor's handiness, and withal talked well about 



60 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the concerns of the coast and the various families 
of the bays. He had traces of descent, as if there 
had been better stock somewhere back. The 
stock and speech of the region are mostly Devon- 
shire. Some of the firstcomers, who married 
Eskimo women and took up the best bays, may 
have been men who were turning their backs on a 
past. "Most of our people had to leave Eng- 
land," remarked George easily. 

Here the lower ground had trees, chiefly spruce, 
and the portages between some small lakes were 
tangled and without a visible trail. The going 
seemed bad to me after the regular Indian paths 
of the southern-slope rivers I was used to. Caribou 
paths were everywhere. The last of the migra- 
tion had passed north about a week before in their 
usual way, first the does and young over the hills, 
afterward the old stags through the valleys. In 
all my time in the country since then I have never 
observed such beaten paths. Sometimes they led 
our way and we followed them, always to have them 
split up before long and disappear. We camped 
at the head of the last lake, on a good beach, where 
Indians had had fire before us. 

From there there was no boatable water for 
some miles, all was rough land work; the valley 
was hot and mosquitoes active. The canoe 
weighed ninety-one or two, and with the paddles 
and a few odds and ends stuffed in carried at not 
less than a hundred. The other luggage was 
not light; we had to double portage the way, and 
took even three loads each over the rougher places. 
Until the third day, for fear of effects on George's 
enthusiasm, I did not dare to let him carry the 
canoe; after that, as he had done pretty well, 
and as I thought he would see by that night 



A PARTING 61 

that it would be easier to reach water ahead than 
behind, I gave him his chance at it. When night 
came the place where we happened to camp was 
the farthest point he had ever been to in that 
direction. It was evident that not more than 
three or four miles ahead there must be a stream, 
but as to the Indian route we had become uncertain. 
Talking at William's, George had professed to 
know just where the Indians went, but now he 
owned that he didn't know, and I was decidedly 
sharp with him. There were a few signs of 
Indians along, but nothing to show regular travel. 
The night went well, at least for me. Before 
breakfast I had explored ahead for a mile, found good 
travel, and returned very cheerful. George was 
wholly unresponsive and pretty soon began to 
talk; his voice quavered. He had "laid awake 
until the birds were singing," thinking about things 
ahead. His boots were thin; his shoulders and 
neck were cut by the canoe; his family might be 
in trouble; the fishing needed him; it was hot, and 
the flies were bad. Finally, and there were tears 
in his voice, "You will go over to the river! and 
then up to the big lake! and then there is no telling 
where you will go!" Here his voice reached too 
high a pitch and broke. It was certainly a bad 
funk. After I told him he could go back if he 
wanted to his voice gradually recovered, and he 
said something about taking my rifle for his pay! 
The final touch appeared when he remarked that 
he had only agreed to go for a day or two. This 
was just too much, and walking up to him with 
two fists I induced him to take it back. He was 
a poor thing, and probably did more work for me 
those three days than in any three days, or six, 
before or since. His neighbors told me afterward 



62 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

that his idea in starting out with me was to come 
into ownership of the rifle after the trip had failed, 
a good rifle being something Hke a fortune there. 

He departed, and I felt truly better, though 
being left alone in such a place is an awkward 
thing. There seemed nothing for it but to keep 
along to boatable water. At least I had every- 
thing I wanted, and plenty of time. 

Making up a pack about equal to the weight 
of the canoe, and abandoning the rest of the outfit, 
I took the load ahead a few hundred yards; then 
going back to the canoe I carried it on past the 
pack for a distance and so on in alternation. Thus 
the pack and canoe were never very far apart and 
not difficult to find. When carrying, one's eyes 
are so shut in under the canoe or so held to the 
front by a head strap that one does not see much 
by the way, and if the rear pack is very far back 
its location may easily be lost in bad ground. 

It was something of a hard day, with the heat 
and mosquitoes and a few loose sand banks to 
climb; but like Crusoe in his lone scrape I had 
also my blessings — peace and a good appetite, 
and now and then a rest, with a bit to eat and a 
pipe. Occasionally through the day I stopped and 
gave a long whoop, for the benefit of the Indians, 
if any were passing in the valley. 

About four, I came out unexpectedly on a 
high escarpment over a little winding river, two 
hundred feet below; a goodlier sight never cheered 
a tired portager. The way the canoe slid down 
that high sand bank on its own bottom was not 
slow. The stream is known to the shore people 
as Side Brook, but at that time I supposed it to 
be what is known as Frank's Brook, the river of 
the Indians. That night I slept under the canoe 



SIDE BROOK 63 

near an Indian marked tree. It rained gently 
and the mosquitoes for a good way around came 
under too, although they did not get inside my 
good net. The canoe made a sounding-board 
and their screeching roar in the pent-up place 
was almost unendurable. At such times it is 
hard to shake off the fear of their finally getting 
at one. Their vindictive yells are beyond all 
wolves. ^''We are going to get you!^'' is their 
burden. I woke many times with nightmarish 
starts, and made a poor night of it. 

Cutting a pole in the morning I made seven or 
eight miles upstream, caught some trout at a falls 
and lunched. So far the river had a firm velvet 
bottom, with some three feet of water — wonderful 
poling. The valley was now close, with thick 
alders, and I was able to find out whether the In- 
dians traveled there. Examination of the tangled 
banks showed that they had not, and I was in a 
quandary, but finally looked about for a high ob- 
servation point. A mountain at hand looked des- 
perately bushy, and was steep, but on getting to it 
I struck a perfectly easy deer path leading all the 
way up. The outlook, my first wide view of the 
inland, was memorable. Coming from west was 
a broad, fine river that evidently the Indians must 
follow, with bold hills to the south and the escarp- 
ment of a high plateau dropping into it from 
the north. Not far southwest, upon the stream 
I had come up, was a beautiful round lake two 
or three miles across, set deep in the hills; not 
far below this lake the river turned about north 
and slid smoothly but white down a slightly slop- 
ing rock face some fifty feet high. The extreme 
western horizon was notched by a rock-walled lake 
of the larger river, where the cliffs had impressive- 



64 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ness even at the thirty miles distance, and there 
were high ridges far beyond. This was all the in- 
terior country I saw that year, still it extended more 
than half way from the coast to the height of land. 
The lake at the head of the small river was so 
tempting that I thought of nothing but getting 
up to it and setting out my little gill net to see 
what was in it, and going back down the mountain 
I portaged the half mile of alder banks to the head 
of the rapids. In the course of the nasty double 
trip I lost my axe, and not caring to spend much 
time looking it up, I left the place without it. At 
any rate I was well over the worst ground on the 
way to the lake, and sat awhile resting and watch- 
ing some good trout slapping about in the smooth 
water at the head of the rapid. It is a little 
curious, by the way, that in these streams of size 
the trout seem to prefer the smooth water above 
the falls to the pools below. That evening they 
were good to see, clearing the water here and there 
with assuring frequency. But as I meditated upon 
my situation it came to me that I was in a fair 
way to miss the Indians altogether if I went on. 
The lay of the country was such that while they 
could approach the coast from almost any direction, 
and would be hard to find at best, this particular 
stream led from a pocket in the hills which was 
quite out of their course. There was some chance 
of my meeting them somewhere nearer Opetik, 
but the sure way was to go back to Davis Inlet 
and wait. This conclusion was not to be avoided. 
Rather ill-naturedly I retraced the hard little 
portage, dropped down river until ten o'clock, 
when the sun was well down, and made a sky 
camp, i.e., boiled a kettle, and lay down on the 
mossy ground alongside the fire. The night was 




11 ._K1.-I, 
The Noahs Splitting Fish, Tuhpungiuk in Background 




Un'sekat 



SIDE BROOK 65 

clear, there was a white frost, and the mosquitoes 
slept through as well as I. It was a night for a 
king! 

There was no real darkness on clear nights; 
one could always see the place of the sun at mid- 
night. Always, when it was clear, the northern 
lights were visible, moving and pausing, and in 
many weird forms. This is their latitude; in the 
far North they are rare. To one alone in the 
wilderness they are strangely affecting. 

To the Indians of the inland they are spirits 
of the departed ; their people who have gone before 
are dancing in the sky. Some have heard the 
rustling of their wild figures, perhaps in truth. 

Once again they rush and gather, 
Hands around they swing together. 
Robes are traiUng in the skyland. 

The people's belief is not strange. If any mani- 
festation of the inanimate has the aspect of the 
spiritual, it is this presence of the northern nights. 
r: ■, Fine weather persisted, to my great advantage 
when I reached the larger waters. There was not 
much land life; the trip had been nearly birdless, 
but now along the stream there were some few 
species. A white-winged crossbill and Canada 
jays of the darker sort were plain to identify. 
A lesser sheldrake appeared sitting on a rock, 
and there were birds of the finch or siskin kind 
about the spruce tops. All the portages seemed 
bad; a half-mile one just below where I first came 
to the stream I remember as annoyingly rough 
and tangled. I suspect that now, used to the 
country, they would seem pretty good; still I was 
doing with hundred-pound loads, which are some- 
thing to a person lately from town, and more 
than have often fallen to me since. 



66 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

The matter of bad footing becomes important 
when one is alone, for an injury from a fall is 
perhaps the accident most to be dreaded. Water 
dangers are hardly as inevitable, at least good 
judgment, which, moreover, is not called for con- 
tinuously, meets most water situations well. But 
any footstep in bad deceptive ground may cause 
a disabling fall to a heavily loaded person. In 
the case of two men together the water danger is 
the greater of the two. Accident and illness are 
not pleasant subjects for the lone traveler to 
think of. Enough things have happened. There 
was old Jock Knight, a trapper on the Magalloway, 
in Maine, who "laid out" in a hut on what is now 
"Jock's Pond," forty days with erysipelas. "I 
didn't mind dying so much, but I didn't want 
to be eaten afterwards by the wild animals! I 
had fit 'em, fit 'em all my life and didn't want 
them to eat me." He was drowned, finally, when 
alone. There are tales enough of the sort. The 
pack is perhaps the most prevailing enemy of the 
lone traveler, who in winter almost always walks on 
the ice, and a man through the ice with a pack on is 
badly off. Once, though this is another story, 
while dragging a deer alone on the ice of a Maine 
stream, and looking long at the high top of Katah- 
din, I walked into a perfectly plain open hole. 
Luckily the water was only four feet deep. 

Yet, on the other hand, few realize how different 
is the method of the man who is out alone from 
that of the same man when he is in company. 
Alone, he is deliberate, careful, circumspect; in 
company comparatively hasty and heedless, his 
senses apt to be clouded by conversation. The 
number of persons, chiefly professional hunters, 
who are habitually much alone in the wilderness, 



ASSIWABAN RIVER G7 

is very large, yet I believe their serious accidents 
are very few in proportion, perhaps not one in 
ten; surely far fewer than among men who do the 
same things with companions. Still the old rule 
of the Narragansetts, mentioned by Roger Williams, 
"Do not travel far alone or without a weapon," 
is a good one, as all Indian rules are. 

Indian lodge poles and winter scaffolds at the 
head of the rapid mentioned indicated snow six 
or seven feet deep. The scaffolds were placed on 
the tops of small trees cut off and projected 
enough so that a wolverene could not climb over 
the edge. Below the rapid the stream was very 
twisty for seven or eight miles and the gravel bars 
yielded to sand. It was early in the season; a 
little later I could not have passed without having 
to wade down the shallows. 

Unexpectedly I emerged from between high- 
cut sand banks and floated out upon the wide main 
river, deep and clear and the bluest water I ever 
looked into. After actually scraping on a sand 
bottom so long it seemed like going off into the air. 
This fine river was very wide, in truth this part 
was its tidal estuary, although the current moved 
well and the water was perfectly fresh. After 
being so long shut in I felt a sort of shyness at 
being run out into the open, at finding myself 
all at once well out on the wide, full-volumed river. 
Lower, near a rocky point, I shot a large loon with 
the rifle and at last had meat. 

From Side Brook it was only three or four 
miles to the mouth of the river. A bar extended a 
mile or two into a great bay, with endless boulders 
and endless gulls upon them — blackbacks and 
herring gulls. They made great uproar as I 
turned seaward on the half tide. The open sea 



68 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

was all of twenty miles away. Far away, just 
inside the coast line, the water horizon at the en- 
trance of the bay was broken by a pointed conical 
island, at that distance nearly hull down. It was 
a marvelously calm, dreamy day, yet cool, such 
as only that coast knows. There were ducks in 
every bight, white-wing coots and sheldrakes; 
sea pigeons skurried about, and the only sound over 
the broad inlet, after the gulls had ceased their 
cries, was the recurring hum and splatter of wings. 
Near ten miles down was the Kudlituk, a land- 
mark perhaps one thousand feet high; its north- 
east corner is square and rises perpendicularly 
from the talus to a great height. It is one of the 
least mistakable landmarks of the region. A 
hundred white-backed eiders were sitting along 
its base on large boulders. As I came on they 
would jump off like bullfrogs, bound up again from 
the water and off on the wing. It was a funny, 
unbirdlike performance. Not one, I think, flew 
directly from his rock. 

As Opetik is chosen of the loons, so is this greater 
and even finer bay the place of that prince of 
his line, the eider. Around the rock points 
comes their grand rush, twenty or forty abreast, 
heads slightly tilted down and their white backs 
gleaming in the sun. They keep to the rock 
shores, leaving the beaches of the upper bay to 
the commoner ducks and the geese of early fall. 
Later the eider seeks the far outer islands. Mainly 
his life is seaward; his northern title, "Seaduck," 
bears he well. 

Before reaching the Kudlituk I had unknow- 
ingly passed John Voisey's house, a small affair. 
It was weathered well to invisibility, and more- 
over to have seen it I had to look backward and 



VOISEY'S BAY 69 

into the sun. He saw the canoe, but thought I 
must be an Indian and kept snug. He found 
out later that he had missed a white visitor, and 
the next year when I came along, not to take any 
chances of losing a caller, his little seaward gable 
had been painted red. No one on that coast 
means to lose any of the passing. 

Somewhere past Kudlituk the sun went down, 
the sky became dull, and a darkish night came 
on. By ten, with sea breeze and tide opposing, 
it was tired, weary work getting on with a single 
paddle. The tides about Kudlituk are apt to 
worry a stranger; as nearly as I can understand 
them they chase themselves around and around 
the island, regardless of rules. It was eight when 
I left the rock, eleven when I landed on some 
smooth moss ground four miles away. For an 
hour or two I strained my eyes to the intersection 
of a far point to port with a rock sky line farther 
away, to make out whether I was gaining at all. 
It took a long time, in the tidal bobble and breeze, 
to see any change at all. One is apt to work too 
long with only three or four hours of night. But 
supper and pipe and bed wxre good that night. 
The mosquitoes were not; the salt water ones 
seem more desperately vicious than those of the 
high ground, though a trifle smaller. Protected 
by the smoke, I lay by the fire in great content 
for some time before turning in, and boiled the 
loon. 

With the morning of the 21st another calm, 
wonderful day came on. In a couple of easy miles 
I cleared the bay and could turn southward. 
The way had been simple until now, but although 
I knew that some twenty miles south were waters 
I had seen before, the way was by no means plain. 



70 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

To the east, beyond a few islands, a water horizon 
with bergs showed there was only sea beyond. 
Southeastward indefinite passages led also to 
sea; obviously they were a last resort. South- 
ward, where I wanted to go, a high, firm rock 
sky line, ten or twelve miles away, was continuous, 
with no hint of a passage. While the weather 
lasted I could of course try the bays one by one 
for a way through, but my rate of speed was slow 
at best, and there might be all sorts of tide currents, 
which indeed there were. It was most on my mind 
that the weather could not safely be counted on, 
it was too fine to last. To be trapped in some 
deep bay for a week or two, unable to get out against 
the wind, would be rather stiff; worse still to be 
driven up on some small island; they looked 
waterless as the moon. A very moderate head 
wind would stop me, for a single paddle to a heavy 
canoe is futility itself against wind and sea. The 
water question need not have concerned me, 
for, as I came to know, there is sure to be a little 
anywhere. 

A good deal of physical wear goes with the 
first onset into such a trip. It usually happens that 
three stiffish days of lake-and-portage work are 
about as much as the person of ordinary town 
habits can do and not feel stale; the fourth day 
there is a falling ofi^. Now the morning I passed 
out of Voisey's Bay I had taken more wear out 
of myself for some days than the short mosquito- 
devilled nights could possibly make good. In 
fact he would be a good traveler who could keep 
up that sort of thing from fourteen to eighteen 
hours a day on any terms, even without hurrying. 
But for me the temptation of those endless perfect 
days had been hard to resist, and I had done too 



SOLITUDE 71 

much. It was the fourth day since I had seen a 
face; people began to seem a myth. How would 
Eskimo behave if I came to any.? All was singu- 
larly beautiful, inspiring, but strange as another 
planet. 

The first island east was pretty high, so I held 
over to it and walked to the top for a look at the 
channels. Curiously, while I was walking I turned 
to speak to some one who was close over my left 
shoulder. Of course no one was there. The 
incident was repeated two or three times, without 
the least variation of the impression. Once on 
the water again my friend left me. 

Starving people who are walking continuously 
are apt to talk to imaginary persons, and some 
who get lost in the woods, even for a short time, 
find it hard to separate the real things from others. 
Before leaving home I had been seeing many 
people constantly, and the habit told. Now, the 
fourth day alone, I began to wish almost any 
sort of person would turn up. My peculiar ex- 
perience on the island never recurred, and during 
a good deal of solitary travel in succeeding years 
I was steadier, if anything, than when in company. 
Turning down the broad water which closes 
in near the site of the former mission station of 
Zoar, I was not long without more substantial 
society. Four or five grampuses were circling 
about two or three miles down; in the stillness I 
could soon hear the loud sigh they make on coming 
to the surface. Their backs are tremendously 
arched, almost like the rim of a large wheel. Not 
much of their length shows at a time, but more 
keeps coming as the first part disappears, until the 
effect of a revolving wheel is complete. 

I watched constantly for some tide movement, 



72 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

a difficult thing to detect In such wide waters. 
As the tide was falling a set toward a bay would 
point to a passage through beyond; an outward 
flow might be Indecisive. There seemed a faint 
showing In favor of keeping south, and I held that 
way. 

Before long one of the grampuses showed his 
back a hundred yards ahead, with a course which 
promised to take him quite near, and hoping for 
a shot I knelt with the rifle and waited. I wanted 
to see what kind of a beast a grampus was. Pres- 
ently a hollow as of the palm of one's hand, but 
five or six feet across, appeared moving swiftly 
along, with the tip of a fin cutting along In the 
middle. The beast was In a good way to come up 
for a broadside shot at fifteen feet as It passed, and 
I made ready. But things did not go as they 
promised. At thirty feet ahead the fin swerved 
and came straight for the canoe. Desperately I 
dropped the rifle, rather uselessly seized the paddle 
and made a side drive. Grampuses are given to 
breaching, and although they are perfectly amiable, 
I was afraid that once under the canoe the beast 
would get excited and send everything Into the 
air. It was a mile to shore and the water was Ice 
water. Nothing happened; he must have gone 
silently down, but I was glad to be alone again. 
For the moment I had rather a sensation. They 
are big enough to do anything, often thirty feet 
long and stoutly built; It Is not a bad thing to 
knock on the canoe when they are nearer than one 
likes. The bay people do not care for actual con- 
tact with them, though their boats are fairly large. 

Still another turn In affairs was coming. Soon, 
while moving absently along, I seemed to catch 
the sound of a far voice, away In_|the west. Turnl^ig 




Summer Ptarmigan 




^ ,••_ rj.'j;3-ia 



Winter Ptarmigan 



UN'SEKAT 73 

that way for a time It came again; I must say it 
had an attractive sound, and keeping on a little 
I saw a black speck moving on a beach. This grew 
to be a black dog; then some trout puncheons came 
into view, a hum.an token, and as I landed an old 
Eskimo appeared and descended to the little 
beach. I got out and met him. He had little 
English and we had a hard time beginning. His 
name was Abel. 

"Come schooner?" 

"No, inland," I said, and pointed west. No 
one ever came from there, he knew, and looked 
worried; I was not telling the truth. Not much 
more was said. As we talked the tinkle of a tin 
kettle came from the canoe, and looking back I 
saw a large dog walking away with my boiled loon 
across his mouth, showing his side teeth at the 
other dogs, who were close along but did not dare 
to take hold. I was out of meat. 

Old Abel looked awhile into the new canoe, 
with its handsome varnished cedar lining, finally 
saying, "Fine kayak!" Presently came three or 
four women with a good catch of sea trout in a 
"flat," a little dory-like skiff. It was their 
voices I had heard, behind the island, shouting and 
laughing about the net as the big trout splashed 
them. Three of them were Eskimo beyond dis- 
guise; the other was not very dark and spoke 
English, though with effort and as if long disused. 
Her husband, old Abel's son, Antone, was away 
at the post. Yes, there was a passage, a rattle, 
at the end of this water. They were uneasy, and 
soon went to splitting the fish. I relinquished an 
unannounced plan of dining with them, but re- 
marked that they ought to give me a fish, as their 
dog had taken my meat. "You can have two," 



74 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

with an inflection which meant "if you will only 
go away"; but one six-pound trout was cer- 
tainly enough. In an experienced way Mrs. 
Antone pricked its back with the point of a knife 
to test its fatness and quality. They need not have 
been afraid, their eleven dogs would have finished 
me in a moment. Rather soon I put off. Some 
way off they called out something about taking 
the little rattle, but I did not go back to talk it over. 
The stillness was suddenly broken, a little later, 
by a huge thunder sound from seaward, behind the 
islands. A silence of some seconds followed, then 
a rending, broken roar. A loud shout came from 
the Eskimo behind. For ten minutes the affair 
went on, an invisible phenomenon of great im- 
pressiveness in the peace and stillness of the day. 
It was only a berg foundering outside, but the air 
was so transparent to sound at the time that its 
being at least two or three miles away seemed in- 
credible. I would have given much to see it 
happen. A Newfoundlander has told me that 
once a wave from a foundering berg in one of their 
great bays washed a man off a rock seven miles 
away! 

I had gathered a dry pole from a beach some- 
where back, leaving the roots on in default of an 
axe. Now, with a slight breeze, I used it for a 
mast, the luggage piled effectively upon the 
spreading roots ; but the breeze died. At the end of 
the bay were high rocks and a passage a few hun- 
dred yards wide. Passing along peacefully in 
glassy water I suddenly noticed that the shores 
were flying back at the rate of some fourteen miles 
an hour, and almost at once the place became 
torn by most astonishing cross-currents and whirl- 
pools. Just ahead two whirlpools lay like a pair 



THE BIG RATTLE 75 

of spectacles. I skimmed the edges of both. 
Nothing but the elusive model of the boat, with 
a bit of help at the right time, saved the day. 
She was a living waterfowl in such water, that boat. 
Everything thrashed about for a few hundred 
yards, when the canoe shot out suddenly into still 
water, almost at right angles to my course of 
beginning. 

The day seemed to be holding out well as to 
incidentals. This was the Big Rattle, where a 
large salt water lake, several miles across, has to 
fill by a narrow, bent channel in a very short time. 
In extreme tides the manifestations of the place 
are amazing. The Little Rattle is an inoffensive 
passage near by on the east, fairly swift at times, 
but never acrobatic. 

There is one other channel leading into the 
lake, small and dry at low tide. There the inflow 
was coming in so strong that I went ashore and 
boiled the big trout while waiting for the current 
to ease. It was my first ample, deliberate meal 
for some days. But one cannot travel hard and 
eat correspondingly. Once in a while when steady 
on the road a great meal may do, but one must not 
let out that way too often. 

The rest of the day was true to type for the 
region; breezes wandered this way and that 'way, 
ahead, behind, and across, with calms between. 
Miles from shore, sometimes, a calm spot would 
be well taken up by mosquitoes. My gloves were 
an inch short, and my wrists arrived at a curious 
sandpaper complexion; they must have had a 
thousand bites in the course of that week. 

By eleven that night I fetched up on the south 
side of Opetik, not far from the house of George. 
It was hard to find a place to sleep, on the steep 



1(, IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

rocks, but there was wood, and supper over I 
tried a slope of small stones, like crusher stone, 
but found myself slipping down again and again 
most uncomfortably. It was a miserable place. 
Mosquitoes, one at a time, managed to get under 
my net. About one o'clock I looked out and dawn 
was gaining in the east; out of patience I threw off 
the blanket and net. There was no use trying to 
sleep and I started a fire, sitting over it. When 
the smoke rose and parted the mosquitoes I fell 
forward, instantly asleep, but wrenched myself 
awake before my face struck the firewood. For 
twenty minutes this wretchedness went on in 
really painful recurrence; later, after a bite and 
some strong tea, I paddled slowly over to George's, 
a couple of miles, feeling in truth pretty slack. 
George heard the dogs, — it was three o'clock, — 
and put his head out. I had felt a touch of 
responsibility about him, he might have had an 
accident and not reached home. 

He had not had a happy time of it. Reaching 
Opetik River that day he had made a smoke, the 
neighborhood signal for a boat. The Edmundses 
thought we had come back and were camping 
there, so paid no attention, as we had the canoe. 
That night it rained, the night I was under the 
canoe on Side Brook, and George had to tough it out. 
It was afternoon the next day, I think, before he 
was taken over. When the neighbors heard his 
story they were near the lynching point at what 
he had done, being themselves of a different sort, 
and foreseeing, moreover, a bad job hunting me up. 
Mrs. G., another sort too, was relieved to see me. 
With George himself I had little talk; he said some- 
thing about having gone along if his boots had not 
been thin. 



TO DAVIS INLET 11 

Mrs. G. did me as well as she could; after a 
second breakfast I got something of a nap, but 
had been too long without sleep and soon turned 
out again. 

It had been reported from the post that Cotter 
was going to Spracklin's with his little schooner 
the next morning; accordingly Johnny Edmunds 
and George were going down at once with trout. 
In time we started; it was hot and calm, and 
though we rowed and sculled as we could it was 
slow going. I missed a good black bear on the 
way. It is possible that the jacketed bullet rode 
the very oily lands in the barrel and went high, 
for I never held better. The disgrace of the 
episode was unpleasant. At midnight our pro- 
spects were bad, with fifteen miles to go. Then I 
slumped, done up, stretched myself on a pile of 
pickled trout, and slept real sleep again at last. 
It was certainly time. Once I woke enough to 
feel the boat careened and driving at a great pace. 
A north wind had come on, by five we were at the 
Inlet. Cotter had not started and there was time 
to eat and get ready before putting off with him. 
We had a blue and white run, above and below, 
to the Cape Harbor — a late start and an early 
landing. There is such a thing as having had 
enough of the fray, and through the trip I sat 
below deck with Cotter in full content, without 
looking out that I remember. 

Things had happened well; after all, there is 
something in making the most of favoring weather. 
In a white northwester a canoe is not the thing 
among these high shores, for one can never tell 
where gusts will come from. The tide crotches 
bobble and kick up into three-cornered seas; 
in funnel passages the waves drive up yeasty, and 



78 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ugly drives of wind shoot out from the steeper 
rocks. It is best for little craft to keep very near 
such shores, or very far away. 

The Cape harbor where we landed is west from 
Fanny's, divided from it by a thousand yards 
of easy low ground. The distance around out- 
side is several miles, for Fanny's looks east and 
the Cape harbor west and north. Cotter had 
come down for salt which Spracklin had stored for 
him at the Cape. 

The Spracklins had fish; namely, cod. Noth- 
ing is fish to a Newfoundlander but cod, — cod 
alone. Salmon are salmon, trout are trout, the 
same with herring, caplin, and the rest; but to 
him cod only is Fish. He may go fishing for any 
of these, for almost anything that swims, for to 
him life is fishing, but he would hardly use the 
word unqualified of anything but cod. Never 
intimate to him that his Fish is not the most game 
of all its kind, — indeed its tail kicks the surface 
in acres sometimes, and it will take a fly, — nor 
that the rock-cod is much above the sculpin. 

The great beds of fish which once lay on the 
surface in sheltered waters are only a tradition 
now; either there are fewer fish, or the traps cut 
them off outside; the wholesale work of the cod 
trap has had its effect in one way or another. 
In old days a buoy or box thrown over would be 
attacked with vigor by the fish. Caplin were 
scarce; now, the balance of nature disturbed, their 
enemy absent, they swarm the waters at times, 
their eggs pile in windrows on the beaches. Salt, 
enough salt for the fish, was the only concern of 
the bay people then, the fish were sure and came 
well up into the bays. They are intercepted now 
with the salmon that used to come to the rivers. 



SPRACKLIN'S 79 

The people still have the rock-cod, largely a winter 
fish. The locked bays of winter are safe from the 
schooners. 

So with the sea birds of the old days, the my- 
riads that filled the air in the time of Aububon. 
The number of schooners that go north has crept 
from a few hundred up to three thousand, each 
with several guns; their crews, men and boys, 
are intimate with the habits of the creature life 
of the coast; little is willingly spared. They 
know where to find the eggs; they can handle well 
the heavy seal guns. But at least nothing is 
wasted; they use all, and betimes the "inex- 
haustible North" replenishes somewhat the supply. 
The Spracklins had a few hundred quintals 
(said "kintle") of fish, taken in the last few days. 
Cotter hurried back with his load of salt, for his 
schooner was leaking, and drowned salt runs away. 
The weather turned totally bad {vide moral for 
travelers: make the most of good weather), and 
Skipper Tom being short handed I did what I 
could on the fish stage. My vacation time was 
fairly up, three to five weeks was what I had 
counted on; it would be nearer seven before I 
could get home. The mailboat was about due. 

My function at the stage was "tending table," 
pitchforking fish from the pen to the table, and 
wheeling away the barrows of split fish to be piled, 
and though mine was the humblest role of all, 
even at that I won more in the way of appetite 
and ability to sleep nights on my folded lance-net 
bed than of distinction. "There is tending and 
tending,'" said one of the crew apropos of my 
efforts. They not only wanted me to keep the 
fish coming, but to place them so as to be con- 
veniently seized — reasonably enough. Their 



80 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

whole season's catch may come in a few days. 
Then the crew works pretty well around the clock. 
Ellen, the young woman who cooked, and well 
indeed, for ten persons, who kept the house clean 
and in order, and did washing, and kept neat, and 
came with a run and a jump when called, also 
worked long at the fish table evenings and at odd 
times. Stout little Jane, beaming with wily 
Spracklin's praise, stood for incredible hours 
enveloped in her big apron, cutting and tearing, 
cutting and tearing, stopping scarcely for meals. 
Four hours' sleep the crew were getting then. 
Poor Spracklin, his arms and wrists set with fish 
boils, "pups" in the vernacular, slept with his 
bandaged arms raised clear of all touch, in his 
face the look of the overworn. Yet all were 
cheerful; the fish were on. Many a fisherman 
on shore or schooner sees no fish. Then they live 
scantily, biscuit and tea, biscuit and tea, and not 
the best; their little pork is precious. We see 
them in passing on the mailboat. They are 
strong men, but their eyes grow absent as the sea- 
son wanes, and their women's. No wonder they 
hunt the islands. 

The foul weather lasted three or four days; ice 
came in, the nets were damaged, and it became too 
rough for the fishing. I turned to outrigging 
the canoe for rowing, using for a rowlock a single 
wood pin with a rope withe, the Newfoundlander's 
shooting rig. The arrangement is silent, the oars 
can be dropped alongside without going adrift, 
and they row well. The pins were forty-two 
inches apart, a fair spread for seven and a half 
foot oars; these last I got out of long oars of 
Spracklin's that were past use; blades are best 
narrow for sea work, say four inches. 




Spracklin 




Cod 



80 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

whole season's catch may come in a few days. 
Then the crew works pretty well around the clock. 
Ellen, the young woman who cooked, and well 
indeed, for ten persons, who kept the house clean 
and in order, and did washing, and kept neat, and 
came with a run and a jump when called, also 
worked long at the fish table evenings and at odd 
times. Stout little Jane, beaming with wily 
Spracklin's praise, stood for incredible hours 
enveloped in her big apron, cutting and tearing, 
cutting and tearing, stopping scarcely for meals. 
Four hours' sleep the crew were getting then. 
Poor Spracklin, his arms and wrists set with fish 
boils, "pups" in the vernacular, slept with his 
bandaged arms raised clear of all touch, in his 
face the look of the overworn. Yet all were 
cheerful; the fish were on. Many a fisherman 
on shore or schooner sees no fish. Then they live 
scantily, biscuit and tea, biscuit and tea, and not 
the best; their little pork is precious. We see 
them in passing on the mailboat. They are 
strong men, but their eyes grow absent as the sea- 
son wanes, and their women's. No wonder they 
hunt the islands. 

The foul weather lasted three or four days; ice 
came in, the nets were damaged, and it became too 
rough for the fishing. I turned to outrigging 
the canoe for rowing, using for a rowlock a single 
wood pin with a rope withe, the Newfoundlander's 
shooting rig. The arrangement is silent, the oars 
can be dropped alongside without going adrift, 
and they row well. The pins were forty-two 
inches apart, a fair spread for seven and a half 
foot oars; these last I got out of long oars of 
Spracklin's that were past use; blades are best 
narrow for sea work, say four inches. 




Spracklin 




Cod 



SPRACKLIN'S 81 

That canoe, eighteen feet by thirty-three 
inches, could be pushed up to a speed of near or 
quite six miles an hour, so rigged, carrying a hundred 
pounds of baggage; and with the rower sitting five 
or six inches from the bottom, close against the 
middle bar, would take irregular and trying seas in a 
perfectly unbelievable way. The fishermen were 
naturally skeptical about canoes for coast travel, 
and had me on their minds; no one in such places 
likes to see foolish risks taken; Skipper Jim, in 
particular, made predictions. But later on I 
happened to be outide one day when the crew 
were hauling a trap. It was true "codfish weather," 
— fog, the wind on the shore, the air rawness 
itself. A sea was coming in, making with the 
backwash from the rocks a very broken "lop." 
Wanting to take a kodak snap at the operation 
going on I threw a short line over a pin in the other 
boat and let my craft pivot about as she liked. 
Spracklin looked my way now and then, but said 
nothing. Going back I led them in, of course, 
for they were loaded. At dinner something was 
said about the canoe, and I remarked to Spracklin, 
"You see she will do almost what a dory will." 
"She'll do what a dory zvon^tr^ he returned, and 
no one bothered about me after that. 

As the days went we wondered about the 
mailboat; she might be on the bottom. When 
at last the weather turned fine the invitation of 
it became too much, and of an afternoon I rowed 
for Davis Inlet. Beyond the Cape Islands is a 
stretch of flat shoals, and before I quite got my 
bearings a long sweeper gathered, broke, and ran 
by with a wicked scream. Anything but flat 
shoals and a swell on a falling tide! These occa- 
sional reminders are chastening. But it was a 



82 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

different matter now from working slowly along 
with one paddle, the butt of everything that 
came. Now the sure ability to pull away from any 
lee shore, to drive, if slowly, into a white-topped 
sea, put a new face on things. One needs to feel 
the master in such matters. There was no more 
wondering whether I was gaining or going back, 
no more desperate holding to the gusts that strove 
to broach. Now only the easy swing to the oars; 
there was no swerving, the canoe ran true. It 
was singular how slight a shifting of a pack fore 
or aft with the feet counteracted the wind push 
to right or left. The canoe did the rest, meeting, 
balancing, lifting over, a creature water bred. 
She passed into other hands when I left that 
year, and was finally wrecked. Never was her 
like. 

There was a drawback, a real disadvantage: 
one could not see ahead. Ducks and sea pigeons 
squttered from under the bow, seals sank silently 
and unperceived; gulls moved on and kept away; 
I missed their companionship, and sometimes 
the meal they might have furnished. One has 
to turn and look ahead now and then for shoals 
and landmarks, but the neck rebels as the hours 
go on, the rhythm of the oars in calm days makes 
the thoughts drowse and drift far away; the low, 
slow swell makes all for dreams. Well if the ear 
catch chuck of wave on rock or ice in time; 
sooner or later a reminding scrape or thump is 
sure to come. 

One needs to see ahead; going backward is a 
crude way. For years I had it in mind that bow- 
facing oars should be the thing, and too late, in 
1910, tried them out in home waters. They were 
the thing indeed; they were as fast as any oars, 



BAY TRAVEL 83 

as easy to use, and I rued the years I had needlessly 
gone without them. 

It was calm throughout the day. Four or 
five grampuses circled about, but not near enough 
for intimacy; they are semi-solitary, for though com- 
mon enough I have never seen more than five 
in a bay at once, and these scattered about. Most 
others of the whale kind seem inclined to go in 
families. A dense flock of "ticklers," the charm- 
ing kittiwakes, came close about my shoulders. 
If the fishermen knock one down the others stay 
close about and are easy victims. They hover 
about the fish schools, indeed the occasional flick 
of a cod's tail explained their presence now. 
According to the fishermen it is small, oily bubbles 
rising from the fish that the ticklers are after. 
How these are produced, though they may be 
from the caplin and other prey seized and man- 
gled by the cod, does not certainly appear. 

It is the sounds, perhaps, more than the sights, 
that rouse one dreaming along through the spaces 
of these endless mirrored days. They simulate 
more familiar ones. The raven's first croak may 
come through the rippling of the dividing bow as 
the distant bark of a dog that is not; the "wailing 
waby's lonely cries," from desolate bays, as the 
voice of some forsaken animal afar. From some- 
where ahead comes a perfect human hail, "Ah! 
There!" — and one turns involuntarily to see who 
has called, but it is only a pair of the great black- 
backs that have launched from some high nesting 
place and come in apprehension to meet and pro- 
test their misgivings. Strange it is to have re- 
vealed the undreamed pairing-time vocabulary 
of this beautiful but silent winter visitor of our 
shores. From my diary, "The great saddle-back 



84 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

gulls hailed from a distance, anxious for their 
young on the islands, and wheeling over with a 
surprising vocabulary of protesting and ejaculatory 
sounds: ' Aaa-ha! — Aaali! — Guk! — Kuk! — 
Huh! — Ooh!' all in a distressed voice, harsh 
yet plaintive. They might be saying, 'We can't 
do anything if you come! We can't do anything, 
we can't help it, but we can't help protesting! 
Ooh!' and their careworn cries go on. 

"They are beautiful large gulls, white below 
and soft black gray above; one would never expect 
their forlorn intonations." 

There is something wrong, or at least depress- 
ing, in the cries of almost all the gulls. One has 
to get used to them. Serenity itself to the eye 
their voices are as of spirits broken for their sins. 

"Dense schools of caplin (cape-lin) sometimes 
wrinkled the surface. They are much like smelts, 
and may be dipped up readily with a hand net. 
Cod disgorge them on the stage and in the boats, 
as do sea trout. They are more slender and 
delicate than smelt, as wanting substance by com- 
parison. The fishermen speak of their spawning 
in the kelp along the shore and of seeing the spawn 
at a distance. 

"Once or twice I took to the paddle for a change, 
but rowing was much more effective and less 
tiring. The canoe is too large for one paddle. . . . 
Toward the inlet the tide helped; it was 7.45 
when I pulled up to the dock and surprised Cotter. 
A great supper of sea trout and bake apple (cloud- 
berry) jam, matched only by my appetite, after 
merely a couple of biscuit on the way up. Both 
Cotter and Spracklin have very good spruce beer. 
C.'s ship, the Pelican, is not in, and he is in great 
fret about it. No Indians yet." 



NASKAPI 85 

"In the morning some one announced Indians 
before we were up. There were eight of them, from 
George River. Three or four are tall, good men, 
of strong Cree type. Most wear deerskin coats, 
but some have cloth shirts over them, covering also 
the skin breechcloth. The visible skin coats 
of the others show a painted pattern around the 
borders. Their inner shirts are of young or un- 
born caribou, with the short, fine hair turned in. 
They are inclined to be chilly in our raw coast air, 
the interior is warmer. The Post finds shelter 
and provisions for them while here, the latter no 
trifling matter, for they are apt to eat little the 
last days coming in. Cotter says they ate twenty- 
two pounds of hard bread to-day, besides pork. 

"My dealing with them is rather difficult on 
the whole. Their intonation is high and nasal, 
and their dialect peculiar. They understand my 
Montagnais talk rather fairly, few words at a time, 
but I do not attempt anything ambitious. The 
camera they are shy about; one of them I got only 
by snapping from the side, unknown to him. 
The others were better, small plugs of tobacco 
modified their objections, and in the end I had them 
all, in some sort. Most of our talk was about 
the country. Pleasant old Katshiuas, whose name 
nevertheless means "Always cross," gave me 
a good map of their route to the coast, but in some 
mysterious way it disappeared later and I never 
saw it again. Kamoques, "Porcupine eater," 
also made one, but it was vague. They are wary 
about strangers. 

Then it was that I learned from Katshiuas that 
the Indian House Lake of Low's map was only a 
narrow affair, no wider than the run in front of 
the post, and my long-cherished vision of a broad, 



86 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

imposing water, possibly larger even than as 
shown conjecturally on the map, and the best 
objective for a season's trip in all Labrador, 
vanished once for all. As a feature of more than 
ordinary interest the lake departed from my mind. 

K. told me quite a little about the country. 
There was wood enough along the route. Once 
out of the Assiwaban and up the " Tshishkatinau 
kapitagan,^^ the high portage — here his arm 
stretched almost vertically — "It is high! high!" 
— there was no stream work, all was lake and 
portage, — "pemishkau, kapitagan," paddle and 
portage, all the way. Mistinipi, "Great Lake," 
was the largest water. There were plenty of 
caribou on the George that year. "They are 
everywhere!" Katshiuas told me truly, in all 
things. 

The first impression that the Naskapi 
make on one is apt to be vivid and a little mixed. 
Their irresponsible thin legs and bare thighs, 
and their horsetail hair, are decidedly not of our 
world, though the latter is generally docked at 
the shoulders. They have a nasal twang, which 
in the excitement of arrival, and at such times 
they are not impassive, becomes almost a whine. 
Their travel clothing is nondescript and dingy; 
though as to this, again, they know how to do 
better, and in new white skin clothing are wholly 
picturesque. But as untamed aborigines. Stone 
Age people, they lay hold of one. The look in their 
eyes is the look of the primitive man of the open. 

Yet it is not too easy to picture from them a 
primitive man of our own strain. Their unmodi- 
fied raciality, which impresses one strongly at first 
meeting, is probably as far from our own as that 
of any high race in the world. To a white person 



NASKAPI 87 

not used to them, their presence becomes easily 
trying. It puts one into a curious tension which 
becomes uncomfortable, one wants to go away, 
shortly, for readjustment. This is mainly, I 
think, a matter of genius; from us they are apart 
beyond most other children of earth. Soon after 
they came I touched one of them with my finger 
and he shrank as if stung. Among themselves 
even they keep more apart than white men do. 
Restlessly they stepped about, keen eyed. They 
were not used to the level boards. 

I had meant to go back at midday to take up 
the unwilling task of catching the steamer, but the 
temptation to have more of the Indians was too 
much and I waited through the afternoon. Quiet 
had settled upon the place; there could be little 
trading until the Pelican should come with her 
cargo. The strangeness of the Indians wore 
away somewhat, and their voices fell agreeably. 
Their ordinary tones fall in almost indistinguish- 
ably with the rhythmic sounds of the open, the 
wind and running water and lip of the waves. 
After all, we had subjects in common, and talked 
as best we could of these things. 

We of the post had kept something of a lookout 
for the steamer during the day without result, but 
after seven a plain smoke appeared beyond the 
horizon in the usual route of the mailboat. She 
would naturally go to Nain and be back possibly 
by noon next day. Thus I had time enough to 
get to Fanny's, and without much risk might have 
waited until morning, but there was the old question 
of weather, and it was calm now. As it turned out 
I should have fared worse to have waited. 

Cotter and others about urged me to stay; the 
tide was wrong, night was no time to travel alone. 



88 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

I could start early. But I was stiff about it, 
arguing that it was now calm, and would be until 
daylight, but that fog comes in the morning, and 
the fog brings the wind. There was no hurry; we had 
a farewell supper and it was nine when I left. 
The Indians gathered at the landing, looking rather 
serious. They do not like night travel overwell. 
All the unseen powers are active then. Travel by 
night alone is the worst of all. 

For a while I used the paddle, keeping close 
inshore out of the current, then took to the oars. 
I had thinned the oar blades to perfect balance 
in C.'s shop, and tightened the withes into silence; 
things went well. For six miles the current was 
wrong, dying out finally; there was then no swell 
to speak of. By eleven the afterglow in the north 
was faint, but was replaced by northern lights, 
shifting and wavering in a long, flat arch, and at 
times as bright as moonlight. I watched the sky 
for signs of wind, for the landing places along were 
not too good, and the only good shelter would 
be far down one of the two large bays. Half 
way across the first bay the swell began to increase 
and sound heavy on the islands eastward. Edging 
farther away from them, toward the mainland, 
a strong uproar of surf came from the south point 
of the bay. By this time it was midnight, and 
dark save for the stars and the brighter periods 
of the north sky. Saddle-back gulls wailed once 
or twice from their islands, sounding familiar and 
friendly — in truth, they sounded a good deal more 
friendly than the roaring shores. The noise, the 
darkness, and the unusual heave of the sea were 
getting to be impressive. Night doings take a 
little extra hardihood. Before long I lost the 
identity of the shore lines and became uncertain 




Kamoques 



A NIGHT ^TRIP 89 

of my course. The tide was passing out from 
the deep bays, and once without landmarks It 
became doubtful where I was getting to. I had 
edged for the mainland, yet might have been going 
seaward by set of tide, which In any event pre- 
vented my taking a straight course and holding 
to It. It was confusing, and after listening to the 
surf awhile and remembering the shallow points 
that might break at any time and bring on an Ice- 
water Interruption, I concluded that open sea was 
the place, and pulled for It. The oars would 
bring me back; It would have been doubtful busi- 
ness with only a paddle. By one o'clock I felt sure 
I was off Lane's Bay and was easier as the roar 
of the west point of the bay receded. Cotter had 
given me a half loaf of bread, and now and then 
I gnawed at It, shifting off my seat Into the bottom 
of the canoe for change of position. Rowing In so 
small a craft as a canoe one has to keep In exactly 
the same position, and gets stiff In time. When 
the sound of breakers came equally from east and 
west I supposed I was off the middle of the bay, 
and lay to, now munching bread and now rowing 
a little for circulation, waiting for light. There 
was still no wind. A grampus snorted about, 
and now and then I knocked well on the gunwale, 
In the Interest of fair play. 

Dawn came late. A heavy bank of fog not 
far seaward shut back the early light. At that 
season the sun creeps along almost level under the 
horizon during the early hours, and heavy cloud 
or fog is very effective In keeping back the day. 
Fog had been working in from seaward for several 
hours, a dense black wall, rising higher and higher. 
By the time I could see the landmark hill at the 
Cape harbor, some six miles away, the fog began 



90 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

to touch the top of it. Then I rowed fast, to get 
over the wide shoals before the fog reached them. 
These shoals were what I had held back for in the 
night. With such an unusual swell and a falling 
tide it would not do to wander along over them 
at random. They were the serious feature of the 
trip. 

It was near five when I made out the Cape hill 
and started past the shoals. There was wind 
now, from east. Things were going well enough, 
when suddenly a coming swell rose high and 
stood for an instant as if looking down at me. 
There was not much to be done, but I threw the 
bow up to make the best of it, twisting the boat head 
on. As luck would have it the wave passed, and 
the usual two more nearly as large, without 
breaking, as follows from my writing this, and 
I swung back into the trough again. If ever any 
one pulled to get away from a place it was then, 
and she was a wonder in the trough, that unnamed 
canoe of 1903 ; like a snake she would run down the 
hollows. But the look of that standing wave, 
hanging over in the dark morning, is one of my 
Labrador memories. Anything but flat shoals 
and a swell, on a falling tide! 

The fog swirled in thick as I reached sheltered 
water. It was no matter. I slapped down my 
pocket compass into the bottom of the canoe 
before it could change its course, and went on 
well, though it was blind work at the end of the 
harbor. 

All creatures come -close in such fog. Twenty 
or thirty eiders flew almost aboard. Ticklers had 
been all about as the fog came on, and another 
bunch of eiders came very close. 

Laying out the canoe, rather as a friend never 



A LOST STEAMER 91 

to be seen again, I did the two miles and more 
across the island to Spracklin's with a pack which 
felt heavy. I had no doubt of getting the steamer. 
During the latter part of the night I heard her 
whistle, at Fanny's, and took it that she was off 
north for Nain. To my amazement Spracklin met me 
in the doorway, with, rather brusquely, "You've 
lost your passage!" I was so dazed, having had no 
misgivings at all in the matter, and being sleepy and 
dense after the doings of the last twenty-four 
hours, that I could not really sense the situation 
until after breakfast. The mailboat had passed 
north early the day before, unseen by us at the 
inlet, and had left, going south, at the time I heard 
the whistle. What steamer it was that made the 
smoke we saw from the post we have never known. 
For the next fifteen hours, however, disappoint- 
ment did not keep me awake much. 

By the time I had slept up a spell of bad weather 
was on. The storm out at sea which had pushed 
the night swell up on the coast had followed in. 
The surf about the exposed Cape had been heavy 
through the night, unusually so. Spracklin, of 
course, heard it; and although there was no wind 
whatever until early morning, he always imagined 
from the noise he had heard that a gale had been 
blowing all night. He really believed it; I could 
never quite shake it out of him, and for years he 
told in good faith the story of my night trip by 
canoe, "in a wild storm alone." He made a good 
yarn of it, if a hard one for me to live up 
to. Many a pretty fame, it may be, has no 
better basis. But to travel conveniently by 
night in such places one needs to know the 
shores better than I did, not to speak of shoals 
and currents. Mere wind can only bother and 



92 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

force one to land, but shoals and sweepers can be 
the de'il's own. 

Spracklln always did have imagination, and 
more. So far as he himself was concerned, wind 
and sea only stirred his blood. One of the pictures 
of him that I like, though I did not see the happen- 
ing, is as coming in through the harbor entrance 
low down with fish, a following wave filling the 
boat, the two Labradorians climbing the mast, 
but Spracklin remaining unmoved at the tiller. 
He finally brought his load of fish alongside the 
stage, the water up to his mouth. He could not 
swim. 

One year I came along just after he had had 
an experience crossing to Lane's Bay alone in his 
jack, a deep, stout boat of some tons burden, over 
waters already described. Near, to the south, 
was that stronghold of ^olus. Windy Tickle. 
From there, perhaps, came the whirlwind which 
tore up the sea and flailed off his masts in an in- 
stant, he as helpless as if in an explosion. For 
once in his life he made that quick mental conge 
of things earthly which wayfarers of less firm clay 
have made with smaller cause. The boat lived, 
how he knew not, and he limped home under such 
rig of remnants as he could improvise. The sea 
had betrayed him at last, and his face and voice 
showed it. 

Things were not too well at Fanny's. The 
fishing fell off with the storm, and did not much 
recover; the total catch had been less than five 
hundred quintals. I was sorry for the people; 
they deserved more than they could possibly get. 
Then Spracklin's trap had to come out, for some 
reason, and Jim's likewise, for a two-pointed berg 
blew in and cut it up badly. Pieces of the berg 



SPRACKLIN'S 93 

came Into the harbor at night, one so large that it 
seemed perfectly impossible for it to have come 
through the narrow entrance. Now there was 
"no twine in the water"; the fisherman's dark 
day had come. By this time the wear of round- 
the-clock work had begun to show on the crew. 
Ellen was the worse for the pace, but kept us going 
somehow. Little Jane was still working like a 
tiger on the stage, for there were some fish ahead 
in the pens and bagnets when the traps gave out. 
I was about the stage too, for more than exercise, 
coming to see that forking and loading are really 
work when long continued. My reward, the 
particular bright spot, as I look back, was Ellen's 
piled plates of "heads and sounds," better even 
than the fish proper; and this is much to say, for 
all Newfoundlanders know how to deal with Fish, 
and at their hands and in their several ways of 
getting it up it is always good. Sunday breakfast, 
where fishing goes on, is ever Brewis, "Fish and 
Bruise." The fish part is well enough; I was wont 
to pick it out very contentedly; but my share of 
the soppy hardbread which constitutes bruise 
generally went to Spracklin's hens. 

Storms from sea, after the fish are in, blow 
them inshore up the bays, where they fatten and 
come back by September. The thick-tailed ones 
are picked out for the table, as being best con- 
ditioned. We had two small salmon before the 
nets were damaged, a change and a treat, but they 
pall on one after two or three meals, unlike Fish. 

Save for Ellen's cooking everything was a little 
out of joint; the wind was truly east. Water 
being scarce, a common occurrence in the islands, 
it had to be brought from the hill in a hand-barrow 
tank. Lest the blue time should extend itself 



94 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

to my personal interests, I took a turn across the 
island one day and weighted the canoe with more 
stones, though it was doing well. A run of bad 
luck in such a place is a thing to make one wary. 
The fishermen are apt to regard special misfortunes 
as punishments for lapses of conduct, particularly 
Sabbath-breaking. Spracklin insisted that Skip- 
per Jim's trouble with the ice came from having 
straightened out his trap the Sunday before. 

This was the rawest black weather of the 
summer. The wind came straight from the Green- 
land ice-cap and Melville Bay, across some hun- 
dreds of miles of berg-bearing sea. The end came 
after some days. Marvelous is the change from 
one of these dark, cold periods to mild calm sun- 
shine, cheering the light on rock and dying surf. 
Unchained from the mailboat incubus I was soon 
off on the old shimmering road to the Inlet, taking 
in the Labrador air as naturally as the creatures 
of the place. These were all about; grampuses 
that roved across the wake and blew; black- 
backs that launched out and hailed "Ah-there"; 
kittiwakes in fluttering flocks; caplin, and the 
flicking cod. Inspiring were the daylight and the 
shining folk of air and sea after the doubting night 
voyage that had been. Ah, the lighted day! 
Chaos and night are much one to sightless man; 
almost all the other creatures, they of the finer 
senses, if not the higher, see better than man when 
night is down. 

A far crying, as of some creature of fox-like 
size, came from distant islands seaward. I could 
imagine it running up and down in the desolation. 
Later I knew it for the waby, the red-throated 
loon. 

Half way along was Sam Bromfield coming from 



BACK TO DAVIS INLET 95 

the post, with such news as there was. The Pelican 
was In, and more Indians. The post people had 
been speculating about me, seeing the sea and fog 
come on, but concluded that I would probably 
get out of the trouble In some way. Sam had my 
rifle on his mind, but I could not promise it to him 
then. He gave me a couple of sticks for spars, 
but my breeze never came; and worse, the tide 
was wrong in the run. 

The day was well along before I landed on the 
post beach, where a dozen tall Indians stood 
waiting upon the wharf. Ashimaganish was one, 
the chief. "Quay! Quay!" we saluted. In the 
way of the Cree tribes. As I climbed up on the 
wharf he gave a shout and the others surrounded 
the loaded canoe, picked it up lightly and put 
It up on the wharf — a friendly act. 

Eighteen more Indians had come, there were 
twenty-six In all. Some would have counted as 
good men anywhere, and there were several 
handsome boys. We were acquainted now, and 
they humanized a good deal; matters of race ap- 
peared less insuperable than before. I found it 
easier to talk with the older men; perhaps they had 
seen more of such occasions; but age seeks Its level. 

The Pelican was anchored out in the run when 
I arrived. Cotter was aboard, and I had supper 
on shore alone. About dark he came hunting me 
up at the men's quarters, where I was sitting in 
with the Indians, and took me off, seeming a little 
upset until we were settled In the house. He was 
excited at leave of absence in the fall, it meant 
a winter in London and Edinboro'. He had never 
been over, and naturally the prospect was gilded; 
his mind was already there, and my talk of things 
near had little response. 



96 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

So it always Is with the younger Hudson's 
Bay Company men after leave is granted. A young 
Canadian of the service, with relations in England, 
showed the same excitement as Cotter in his 
preparations. The people of the posts ask very 
simply about things of the world, and so this young 
man, though he had once been to school in a large 
Canadian city. The talk had all to be upon 
London and the way of things there, and above all 
upon clothes. Cost entered little, for these people 
beyond the money line all feel passing rich. Their 
salaries are small, but, willy nilly, in their wantless 
life they can scarcely help saving. The total sum 
in a lifetime can only be small as the world goes, 
but the financial tide is always rising. One day 
they emerge into the world and the scales fall 
from their eyes. 

In the case referred to the young man had not 
lived in the world for nothing, and flinched a little 
by the time I was done with the matter of coats 
and trousers and costs. He saw me as flying a 
little high; one wouldn't really need all those things. 
In due time I happened to meet him just returning. 
He was still sturdy, a little redder; he had had a 
good time. But he thought, on the whole, it was 
as well for one to live in the country one belonged 
to. 

One ought to have letters of introduction in 
going to a Hudson's Bay Company post. Now I 
suffered a disadvantage in not having them. The 
rules are rather strict about putting strangers 
into relation with the Indians and the hunting 
country. The good people of the post had placed 
themselves in a doubtful position by doing what 
they had, and they had now become doubtful 
lest I meant to set up in trade with their Indians. 



A DOUBTFUL POSITION 97 

Their doubts were not very farfetched; they saw 
that I was an old hand, my outfit was untourlst- 
like, and I had more use of the Indian language 
than any one along the shore. Among the shore 
people there had been abundant speculation as 
to my purposes from the first. They were shrewdly 
sure that I must be either looking for minerals 
or intending to trade. The Newfoundlanders 
believed I was after gold; Spracklin indeed begged 
me to let him in on what I might find. It was 
announced in the St. John's papers one year that 
we had found gold in paying quantities and were 
going to develop it in a large way. The shore 
folk, however, held the fur theory. 

Until now the Hudson's Bay Company people had 
kept a steady head. There had even been an under- 
standing that when the Pelican had come and gone, 
and the Indians were off, some one of them would 
make a trip inland with me, if I was still there to go. 
One of these people had once been a hundred 
miles inland, as he reckoned it, by dog train, with 
William Edmunds and two Southern Indians. 
They had gone up river from Opetik Bay, due 
west; this I suspect was compass west, really almost 
southwest, and the distance, two and a half days 
of good sledging, was probably less than was 
thought. The coast distances hold out well — 
are based on the sea mile, perhaps, the "long sea 
mile" of John Silver and Treasure Island. Inland 
miles are another matter, they grow shorter and 
shorter as the shoreman's home places and in- 
separable salt water fall behind. What turned 
the Hudson's Bay Company party back was 
Indians, not snowshoe tracks or imaginary In- 
dians, but the very men they were with. For 
some reason best known to themselves they an- 



98 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

nounced to the outsiders that they did not want 
them to go any farther into the country and 
actually threatened violence. Our white man was 
disposed to be militant, but William's enthusiasm 
fell away and they turned back. This may have 
been well; it was then not so very long since some 
of the northern Indians had set out to rush Davis 
Inlet post, being denied what they asked. 

The projected trip inland was now off, of 
course, I being a doubtful person. The feasibility 
of making an arrangement with the Indians was also 
lessened, for their keen observation had not 
missed the change of atmosphere, and they are not 
apt to take much trouble for a person of doubtful 
standing among his own people. Whether it was 
the prevailing talk of the shore people, or, more 
likely, the counsels of cautious old Captain Gray, 
of the Pelican, that upset things, I never knew. 
At the time I only thought them all, though mis- 
taken to the joking point, a shining example of 
carefulness in the interest of the Hudson's Bay 
Company. Admirable servants! I praised them 
for it to my friend, Peter McKenzie, the manager 
in Montreal, the next winter. 

Here does come a joke, rather on the other side. 
Some time afterward, one of the post people 
called on me in Boston, and seeing the easy ab- 
surdity of his former notion, told me something 
I had not thought of. He had been at the end 
of his contract with the Hudson's Bay Company 
that year and was thinking of setting up for 
himself in trade with the Indians. The journey 
inland with William was to find a site for a trading 
store. His worry about me, it appeared, was 
mainly for himself; he was guarding his own pre- 
serves. 



THE DICKERS 99 

There are colls and coils. This Idea of an 
Inland trading post was known to William, whose 
best perquisite was the boating of Indians to 
Davis Inlet at a dollar a head. William's interest 
was clear; if the trading went inland he would be 
the loser. It was believed by those interested 
that he had intrigued with the Indians to defeat 
the enterprise. 

With whatever of cross-currents the days that 
followed this fourth arrival at the post were 
sufficiently unvexed and full of interest. Indians 
were everywhere, the old Hudson's Bay people 
and the shore folk always had something to 
say, and my note book grew, if less than it ought. 
The oldest of the Hudson's Bay Company people, 
Mr. Dickers, in his active days a carpenter in the 
service, had been long at Fort Chimo on Ungava 
Bay. The second generation, John and James, 
were the active men here at Davis Inlet now, the 
latter a cooper, who made the rows of handsome 
barrels that the sea trout were shipped In, while 
John was general right-hand man of the post. 
They were Scotch, almost of course, being of the 
Hudson's Bay Company. I ought to have saved 
more from these people's talk than I did. The el- 
der Dickers had lived in the romantic period of 
the North, in the days when fur was all and In- 
dians came and went over the wide North as they 
never will again; yet I, young when Ballantlne's 
tales were young, and Dick Prince and Dog 
Crusoe and Chimo and Ungava were stirring 
names, have little to tell. What questions I 
should have asked! They spoke mainly of the 
Eskimo. There were inland Eskimo, little people, 
who came to Chimo from the northwest. They 
hunted quite away from the shores. There were 



100 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ordinary Eskimo who made sometimes six weeks' 
journeys to Ungava, bringing kometiks piled four 
feet high with furs, and they would return with 
tobacco by the hundredweight, and maybe 
rifles, five or six of them; but they bought no pro- 
visions of the post. 

As ever, there were tales of trouble from in- 
fringement of hunting territory, as when some- 
where about Ungava a ship's crew, beset, took to 
hunting deer themselves. The Eskimo, in re- 
sentment, scuttled the ship while the men were 
away hunting. No less the primeval tale of 
women stealing, and the Eskimo has a heavy 
hand. It was forty or fifty years ago. The com- 
pany's ship was wrecked, and the crew separated 
in two boats. The mate, Armstrong, brought his 
crew out at Ungava. The captain's sailors made 
trouble with the Eskimo women, whereupon the 
men turned in and killed the whole white party. 
In more recent years an Ungava Eskimo killed 
a very large white bear with his knife alone. 

The Indians were busy between ship and shore 
for a day or two, putting through the heavy job 
of transferring freight. Along with lighter goods 
was much that was not easy to handle, such as 
flour and pork, besides the weighty hogsheads of 
molasses. In the intervals the workers spread about 
the place in a vacation spirit, as if making the most 
of their excursion. One evening the younger 
ones got out Cotter's football. They were active, 
and there was a good deal of fun, though moccasin- 
foot kicking Is not very effective. Once the goods 
were ashore Cotter and his people shut themselves 
into the store to open the cases and get ready for 
trading, leaving the Indians outside. We had a 
good deal of talk. There were eighty people, they 



WITH THE INDIANS 101 

said, left at their place on the George. It took them 
seven days to come over. 

The furs come down in snug, spindle-shaped 
bundles laced up as with a shoe lacing, the cover 
being sealskin, hair outside, to keep the water out. 
Such bundles usually have two carrying lines, one 
for the head and the other to cross the shoulders. 
Furs are their money; and some of them, such as the 
martens, are not much heavier than banknotes; 
indeed furs are about as current as money almost 
anywhere in northern Canada. 

As to the Kokomesh, the namdycush trout, they 
said it was common in the lakes, up to two and 
a half feet long and very deep; the depth they 
emphasized, for depth means both quantity and 
quality, and the kokomesh is their principal fish. 
They would not say that there were any very heavy 
ones, this to my surprise, for some of their lakes 
are large, and it is certain that in some of the lakes 
of the Northwest at least, the namdycush grows to 
nearly a hundred pounds' weight. The fontinalis 
was well known, and the whiteiish, with various 
suckers. We agreed easily on the names of the 
usual animals of the North, and the common birds 
and trees. They did not understand my name for 
the north star. 

Two or three of them became interested in my 
prints taken on southern-slope rivers, telling 
others about them, who came in turn to see. 
Many of my things were new or unusual to them, 
beginning with the canoe. They were interested 
in everything, finally showing, like everybody 
else, curiosity as to what I was there for. The 
chief took me off alone one day, and began to 
quiz: "Tante tshina kokominah.?" he asked. 
The words were plain, but I could not believe I had 



102 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

heard clearly. "Tante tshina kokominah?" he 
insisted, with emphasis. There was no doubt, he 
was asking, "Where is your old woman?" What- 
ever business was it of his ^ At last it came to me 
that it was his way of asking where my home 
was, and I pointed south: "Twelve days in the 
fireboat — twelve days — night and day, night 
and day; it is very far"; this in Montagnais, of 
course. "What are you here for.?" I told him 
I was not a trader, not a hunter, and stayed in my 
own country most of the time; but once in a while I 
liked to travel, to go to a new country, to see the 
animals and birds and fish and trees and the people; 
then I went back to my country again. He seemed 
to understand and we drifted into other talk. 
Before we parted he asked, "Why don't you go 
inland with us and have a tent and a wife at 
Tshinutivish .? " I told him I should like to go 
over there tremendously (true enough), but it 
was getting late in the season, and I really must 
go back home. I might come up next year. 
Afterwards I speculated as to whether he expected 
me to bring along a kokominah, or whether he 
would have found one for me up there, but the 
matter would have strained my powers in the lan- 
guage. Still I ought to have asked him. 

The Oldtown canoe was a great attraction. 
They were beginning to use canvas themselves, 
and knew how limp it was, how hard to make a 
handsome job with. Indeed, how they can build 
as shapely a canvas canoe as they do without using 
a form is hard to see. The symmetry and perfect 
surface of mine was a despair to them. Long they 
would stand over it, studying and lifting it; their 
heads surely swam with being kept upside down 
in studying out the neat work in the ends. I 



WITH THE INDIANS 103 

should have been glad to explain that they were 
really better builders than we, that it was no 
trouble to do such work if one used a form to 
model on, but I had not the language. I could have 
sold the canoe easily. They did not like the 
broad paddles, and in this were right. Katshiuas 
looked doubtfully at the light gunwale; "Nauashu," 
he said, "It is frail," and I tried to explain that 
the stiffness we get by nailing the sheathing and 
ribs together made a heavy gunwale unnecessary. 
In their canoes the gunwale is the very backbone. 
Katshiuas put his hand upon the cane seat, of 
which unnautical device I was duly ashamed. 
"Do you sit down heref^ he asked, incredulously, 
as if pained. They kneel, themselves, low down, 
sitting upon their heels. I explained, sheepishly, 
as I had about the paddles, that I did not make 
these things and knew they were all wrong. Be- 
fore the trading was over I saw one of the canoe 
builders buying brass clinching nails; he was 
evidently going to try them. 

I had been giving a piece of tobacco for a 
camera snap now and then, until the boys used to 
call out "Tsh'tamau!"* (tobacco) almost any 
time I appeared in sight, and it came to be ex- 
pected. One day before trading began the chief 
asked me if I wanted to take a picture, and 
grouped up a lot of his people on the platform, 
while I took three snaps. As I turned away, there 
was a bedlam of cries for Tsh'tamau; "Aishkats," 
"By and by," I said, and pointed to the store; 
they laughed and scattered. Later in the day 
I bought twenty-six of the little black plugs they 
prefer, one for each man, and with pockets and 
hands full went out, nodding to two or three In- 
dians who were in sight. They saw, disappeared, 
*Tsh-tay-mow. 



104 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and presently came back with the rest, surrounding 
me in wild riot. As fast as one got a plug he mixed 
in again with the others. There would not have 
been the least trouble in their coming two or three 
times apiece, for I could not keep track of them, 
and I felt sure they would do so. But when they 
stopped coming there was still one plug left over — 
the man who had refused to give me a pose had 
stayed away. I was surprised at this fair play, 
but experience with more than a hundred indi- 
viduals since that time has developed nothing but 
the same sort of thing. 

Now came the trading. Most of the furs had 
been passed in before the ship came, and paid for 
with colored counters like small poker chips. 
Yellow ones are ^5, white $2, red 50 cents, blue 
20 cents. This money is used like any other for 
buying the goods. The older men coach the 
younger ones in their trading. There is, or was 
on this occasion, no ill temper, and much laughing 
as the goods were chosen. The list of items was 
long.* Katshinas bought a folding stove. Red 
handkerchiefs with a pattern were mostly pre- 
ferred to the blue ones; they bought any number 
of them. Prices were stiff, a light single shotgun, 
muzzle loader, was ^16. The chief finally asked 
for a "debt," that is, something on credit. 

"August 4. Two wolverene skins among the 
rest this morning, also one or two heavy-furred 
whitish wolf skins, very large; quite a few otter; 
a good number of white foxes, many reds, and some 
cross foxes. A black fox fetched ^100. 

*They buy cartridges, powder, shot, tobacco, tea, cloth, 
shirts, leggins, needles, thread, ribbon, beads, axes, knives, 
spy-glasses, kettles, Eskimo boots, blankets (white), hooks, 
lines, mouth-harmonicas, handkerchiefs. 



A NASKAPI PARTING 105 

"It Is a tough piece of work for C. to stand 
all day and deal with them, but he does It admira- 
bly. He works pretty fast and there Is no great 
amount of shopping bother such as one might 
expect. John Dicker and Johnny E. run upstairs, 
climb shelves, weigh, and measure. It has gone 
on from six this morning and will hardly be over 
to-night. 

"In a general way a man buys, besides his 
various personal stuff, a large lot of something 
like powder, tea, or some one kind of cloth. As 
there Is no sign of discussion among them I take 
It that this Is done by prearrangement, and that a 
redistribution Is made afterwards." 

About midday the fifth trading was over. 
Then a curious change came over the Indians; 
they had been easy, good natured, leisurely; now 
they were hurried, unresponsive, silent; they 
crouched over their bundles Intently; their backs 
seemed always toward one. Two boats were ready, 
William's and theHudson's Bay Company's "punt." 
Without taking leave or looking back they scat- 
tered down the wharf and Into the boats. The 
older men got Into the punt, eight of them. 

They were unmodified wild men again, and 
disagreeable to boot. I was taken aback, not to 
say disconcerted, but at any rate I had seen the 
Naskapl way of leaving a white man's place. 
Still I could have kicked them, one and all. There 
are mitigating circumstances, though, when one 
comes to know why they choose this way. 

I decided to go along as far as Opetik anyway, 
though with no definite plan beyond. Johnny 
Edmunds had told me that his father would go 
Inland with me, he knew. I might never be on the 
coast again, and anything observed while I was on 



106 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the spot would be so much gain. There was a good 
chance that I would be able to get some pictures 
of them in deerskin clothes at Opetik, when they 
were less covered by the wretched cloth things 
which most were wearing outside, and I might even 
make some arrangement to go along with them for a 
day or two. So I got in with the eighteen younger 
men, the older ones looking too sour, holding fast 
to the tow line of the canoe. We were packed 
like sardines. 

The punt, sailed by a bay man named John, 
started well ahead, and was, withal, a faster boat 
than ours. We were a fairly companionable mob 
when once off, and when it went calm off Shung-ho, 
two of the young fellows asked if they might take 
the canoe, as of course they might — a good 
thing, crowded as we were. The outriggers both- 
ered them, and before long they came very civilly 
to see if they might take them off; once clear of 
these they paddled a good many miles. When we 
landed at Jim Lane's I took the canoe and paddled 
it ashore myself. There was a little slop, and 
because I did not hold the canoe quite straight, 
though I thought I was doing very well as the wind 
was, the young scamps hooted and laughed. 
Derision is an easy gift of the young Indians, they 
are quick to see an opening and have all the wit 
they need. I had suffered a little in dignity from 
having dropped in with the younger men. 

We had rather a good time, naming everything 
we could see or think of, birds, animals, fish, and 
trees. At last they found a tree I did not know 
their name for, and were triumphant, but I had 
done pretty well. They pointed southwest up 
the valley from Opetik and said, "Nashkau 
shebo," — one could go to Northwest (Nascaupee) 



A FAILING VENTURE 107 

River that way. Nashkau, Nishku In Montag- 
nais, is the Canada goose. There is probably a 
confusion in caUing the river Nascaupee, which is 
a common if an uncomplimentary name for a 
northern Indian. I had some raisins and choco- 
late which I passed about, and in turn one of 
them gave me a piece of indifferent-tasting caribou 
tallow, which they melt and run into cakes. It 
was slightly turned. 

Johnny E. talked, his eye on my rifle; he 
was unnecessarily afraid that George would get 
it, and told how, when I finally gave out the night 
I boated with him and George to the Inlet, and 
went to sleep on the fish, G. had helped himself 
largely to my stock of chocolate and bacon; 
things which, by the way, I could not replace. 
I had noticed that these supplies went down 
remarkably about that time. As it was rather 
late for Johnny to explain his position as accessory 
I did not warm toward him. Later he warned me 
of lice, saying that he often had one or two after 
boating Indians. Although I was certainly well 
mixed in with them that day I came off clear. 

The Opetik venture came to little. It was 
late when we arrived, and too dark for pictures, 
save one of two boys who came and asked to be 
taken together; one was Nah-pay-o, of whom I 
was to see something in coming years. Nor was 
the matter of darkness the worst, for John had 
been the bearer of a hint to William from the post, 
and he refused point blank to go inland. 

The up-river tide would not serve until two 
in the morning, but the Indians carried their 
things some way across a neck to their embarking 
place, built fires, cooked and waited. I was left 
alone near the house for a time, the family having 



108 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

gone over with the Indians. A dozen large dogs 
were going about together. They had been restive 
and excited about the Indians, having indeed laid 
hold of a boy. Fortunately the family were there 
and clubbed them off. Now I was walking about, 
thinking what to do and oblivious of all dogs. I 
had had no trouble that year with the many I had 
been among; but I smelt as Indian, doubtless, 
after late associations, as the real thing, and ought 
to have realized the danger of it. 

All at once I was conscious of being surrounded 
by the whole group of dogs, tails up and moving 
along with me, their noses and closed teeth rubbing 
against my elbows with suppressed growls; only 
a snap from one and the whole pack would have 
me down and in pieces. It was a bad situation. 
For an instant rose the mist of panic. In a matter 
of seconds my eyes rolled to a stick not far away 
which I could reach without stooping. It would 
not do to move suddenly, and I strolled as before. 
Once I clutched the stick, and swung it high, the 
dogs scattered. Sticks are swung to kill on that 
coast. 

I went over to the Indians, singled out Katshi- 
uas, and told him I wanted to see a little of the 
country and would give him my canoe if he would 
help me to keep along with them one, two, or 
three days, and would give me in return some old 
canoe — "ipishash ush, tshiash ush" — "a small 
canoe, worn canoe," and I would come back by 
myself, "nil peiku,"* — "myself alone." He was 
interested, got out quite a good canvas canoe, and 
offered it to me. "Miami"— "Good!" I said, 
but he would have to help bring my stuff over the 
neck, and I was old and not very strong, and would 
have to have help on the march; some one would 

*Pay-eeku. 



A PIECE OF PORK 109 

have to go in my canoe. He called some of the 
young men from their blankets — it was then mid- 
night — and they talked together; then the young 
fellows flatly refused to take me on. It was not 
strange, they were heavily loaded and I would have 
been only a bother on my own showing. They were 
three to a canoe, and as to trying to keep up with 
them unaided, besides portaging an outfit and a 
ninety-pound canoe, and over the hard route 
George and I had taken — as well pursue the birds. 

I sought William's floor the rest of the night, 
not without mosquitoes. At three or so came a 
loud knocking at the door, and in strode Ash- 
imaganish, the chief, demanding from dazed 
William a piece of pork which he assumed had 
been looted from one of his men. He was very 
rough. It really seemed as if we would have to 
produce it quick, or be tomahawked, but it could 
not be found. William's protestations of inno- 
cence were received with the very worst grace by 
A., but he went off leaving us alive. 

When I went to the beach in the morning 
there was the pork in my canoe ! In the unloading 
one of the house people had naturally taken it for 
mine and put it where it belonged. As I re- 
member, I made some arrangement with W. 
to explain next time the Indians came down, but 
I could not be very sorry that A. had not found 
it where it was. 

Next day William and I talked a long time. 
He was hazy and unresponsive when, I tried to 
discuss the Side Brook country and the ground 
I had overlooked beyond. I could not make 
him out. In the end I lost patience and put on 
the screws: "You know well enough how the 
brook winds above the rapids, you must know that 



110 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

fine lake on the head, and the fall with the sharp 
turn to the north where the river slides down the 
high rock!" Now at last his face lighted, "You 
have been there, after all, you have been there." 
The trouble had been that the Opetik people 
thought I merely followed George back, and did not 
go over to Side Brook at all. 

Although it was useless to try to keep up with 
the Indians alone, they would be two days, with 
their heavy loads, in getting to the Assiwaban; 
and by going by sea I might cut in ahead of them, 
for they reach the Assiwaban close to tide water. 
With everything my way it could be done in a 
day, a long one, and impelled by a dream of getting 
pictures of the Indians while they were traveling, 
I started. But four hours of savage pulling against a 
strong head gale left me short of the Big Rattle, and 
though things improved then, I went tired and left 
off at five o'clock, camping behind highTuh-pungiuk 
Rock just inside the fine bay of that name. 

The wide, easy slopes and dignified escarp- 
ments west of the bay are grateful to the eye 
after the rugged rock heights of the outer waters. 
Eastward, and near, are the little Un'sekat islands 
where I met old Abel and his women in July. 
From Tuh-pungiuk, which is seven hundred feet 
high, appeared some people, evidently Eskimo, 
tending a net in the sweeping sand crescent which 
runs out to the three islands. Not caring to dis- 
turb the peace of the Un'sekat mind again by 
showing myself just at night, I kept out of sight. 
My climb up the hill had been mainly with an eye 
to an Arctic hare for supper, but there were only 
signs, and I had to come down, in more than one 
sense of the word, to bacon. It was my last night 
on the moss that year, and my last camp alone. 



UN'SEKAT 111 

The morning of the 7th there were tails of sea 
fog to the hilltops and a moderate northeaster 
began to drive in, cold and gloomy, with misty 
rain. I started on, but it took an hour's hard 
work and tossing to reach the first little island, 
hardly a mile away. It was clear that I could not 
get around and up the Assiwaban that day, that 
my Indianizing for the year was done. William 
had said that the "overfall" just below where the 
Indians would take the river was ten miles above 
Side Brook. It was really only a mile or so, but 
even at that the distance was at least thirty miles 
from my camp, Tuh-pungiuk, and the day was 
one to be under cover. 

At low tide the three little Un'sekat islands are 
united, and I was able to walk the mile to the Noahs'. 
They were not afraid now,they had heard about me 
from the post, and asked me this time to dinner, 
with a welcome. Aboriginal hands are small and 
shapely. The little house was, I judged, eleven 
by thirteen, pretty snug for the eight of us. But 
it was clean; An tone's wife, who it appeared was a 
sister of William and David Edmunds, had lived 
at the post at some time long ago and had not 
forgotten its ways. There was soap and a wash- 
tub and board — these outdoors, as was the cook- 
ing fire; the smell of the cooking was kept out of 
the little house. The fire inside was only for 
warmth, save in downright rain. Mrs. Antone 
had taken hold in the family and kept them up. 
And they were all kind, even as being Eskimo. 
Dripping as I was, in oilcoat shining from the drive 
of the icy sea, outdone by the elements, the warmth 
and welcome went to my heart. Mine was the 
best seat by the fire, the valeting by kindly hands, 
the dry, hot woolens brought out, the best of the 



112 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

trout from the pan. The sound of the axe, the 
going on of the kettle, the intent picking out 
of the best trout — these are memories that return. 

Toward night I gathered myself to go back 
to my outfit, meaning to sleep under the canoe. 
The house was small, nor did I know whether 
it would do to take up with the family in such 
limited quarters, if indeed they cared to have me. 
They protested; it did not look right, Mrs. Antone 
said, for a person to go off alone that way in a cold 
storm, to sleep without fire — why not stay with 
them and be comfortable. It came to the point 
of injury to their feelings. I hesitated, and 
yielded; there was only to go over to the canoe 
for a blanket. Now appeared some sort of doubt, 
perhaps in part curiosity. They were still in un- 
certainties of some sort. Then, as ever during 
the days I was there, I was not permitted to go out 
of sight alone; this time it was the stout six-year 
boy who went along; towed most helpfully over 
the hard places by a cord tied to the neck of a 
stout young dog. I was glad to have them along. 
There were some flocks of wonderfully tame ducks 
in sheltered nooks by the way, ruddies I thought, 
and some eiders and gulls, the latter nearly silent 
now that the nesting-time was over. 

Once back at the house, with a few supplies, I 
became fairly one of the family. During the 
evening old Mrs. Noah turned and dried my skin 
boots, working them into pliability with the little 
gouge-like tool they all have, and stretching and 
pulling them into shape. She chewed well the 
hard places with short experienced teeth, sparing 
no pains, until the boots were as they had never 
been before. In the morning they were along- 
side my bed as fit as Sunday gloves. I was 




Sea Trout at Un'sekat (Page 73) 




Squaretail and Lake Trout, Assiwaban River 1906, (Page 228) 



UN'SEKAT 113 

mended and tended. Never too many are these 
women's hands by the way — one never for- 
gets. 

After I had been undressed and put to bed, 
they fetched a long piece of cloth, like bunting, 
and curtained it around me, sleeping-car fashion. 
There was some rustling afterward, but I never 
knew how they stowed themselves, and when I 
turned out in the morning they were about the 
house as usual. I had a rare sleep. It was too 
cold for mosquitoes. 

It is the usual thing hereabouts to have the 
summer house on some such rock as Un'sekat, 
where all breezes help against mosquitoes. The 
half-white people of the bays are more apt to cling 
to their winter houses, enduring and complaining, 
their poor dogs making warm nights hideous in 
their sleepless torture. A dog begins to wail his 
misery, another takes it up, and presently all are 
in full cry together. It is well to camp away 
from dogs, which draw flies, if possible on some 
little rock island. Then, if one have netting and 
be a good sleeper, something can be done. 

The Noahs' interest in me, partly as a new 
specimen in natural history, and more as to what 
I was going about in this way for, never quite 
subsided. Their original uneasiness came a good 
deal from experiences of the coast in the past with 
two or three other strangers who had passed along. 
One, if I remember, was insane; another, with a 
past, had committed suicide on being identified 
at some far north station. As to this sort of thing 
they became tolerably reassured, but of course 
no one would come away from the world and go 
about this way who hadn't something on his mind. 
Mrs. A., on a hazard, was explicitly sympathetic 



114 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

as to my past. There may have been a special 
reason for wishing to know the worst; I might be 
looking for a place to settle; such things had 
happened, and the young lady of the family was 
eligible. But they ought to know something 
about me. One cannot be too careful in these 
things. It had not helped matters that I passed 
up intentionally through the Big Rattle, though it 
was as smooth as oil at the time. "You-are-a-doire- 
defl!" said Mrs. A., in the queer speech she had 
before her English became limbered up. Still, 
not to abandon her sex, she did not wholly dis- 
approve my supposed recklessness, and remained 
always sympathetic. 

The second day the women went to the net 
behind the island and I was left alone in the house. 
After a time I looked out, and to my surprise 
saw four men, Eskimo, with old Abel superin- 
tending, laying out a net on the beach-grass a 
few yards away. How they got there so quietly I 
could not imagine. Could a boatload of people 
land without my knowing it, without hearing 
all the sharp-cut Eskimo talk of such occasions? 
It seemed strange, if not uncanny. I looked 
harder, and saw that it was simply the women of 
the family, who had dropped off their skirts and 
were doing their work in the usual men's trousers 
they wore underneath. Their new cut was much 
more appropriate and fit. The young lady of the 
house, slim and straight, with high-bred shoulders, 
looked particularly well in her handsome seal- 
skins. Certainly skirts are the last thing for an 
active fisherwoman. 

Complete enough seemed the life for the time. 
There was no comfort to be added that was of 
consequence; the warm hearth, the good fare 



UN'SEKAT 115 

of the sea, the kindly thought of the people, were 
enough for the day. 

Time comes when almost any refuge, and this 
was more than a refuge, goes far with one; and the 
chancing upon people of a new race in their home 
happens not too often. The alternative with 
me was weathering out a long wet northeaster, at 
near freezing, off alone. 

We lived well. A nine-pound salmon came in, 
and there were always fine large trout. Some one 
would run down the rocks, bring back a kettle of 
clear sea water, and in this the trout would be 
boiled; there was no salt but that of the sea water. 
At first fish done this way tasted flat to me, with 
a trace of bitter, but after a little I preferred them 
that way. We were certainly doing well. "Eat! 
Eat plentee! There is plentee!" old Abel would 
say, as I paused over the fish. One day he took 
a hammer and asked me to go along with him, 
across the little island. He led the way to a boul- 
der of lightish trap, much like others about in 
appearance, but unlike them it rang when he 
struck it. He thought there must be something 
unusual in it, perhaps gold, to be so different from 
the dull-sounding stones about. I had the un- 
grateful task of explaining that there was no 
gold in it, that it was no more valuable than the 
other stones. One would not expect him to notice 
that the boulder rang. Eskimo have remarkable 
powers of observation in physical matters, not to 
say of analysis. The well-known block-and-tackle 
purchase with which they haul out walrus and other 
heavy water game shows this; and even though 
they may have taken the idea from whalers, their 
clever adaptation of it, at least, places them very 
high in mechanical conception. They have un- 



116 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

usual skull capacity. I think it is Deniker, among 
the ethnologists, who states that a certain string of 
fifteen Eskimo skulls had greater average capacity 
than any similar string of any other race. 

For a day or two the little air of uncertainty 
about me did not change; the family were still at 
a loss to place me. Then, apparently, they came 
into new light, and the way of it was hardly to be 
expected. It was a matter, we will say, of botany. 
The flowers of the bleak, exposed place were almost 
as interesting as at Fanny's earlier, though they 
were now of the less engaging types of early fall. 
I happened to gather a few and took them into the 
house to be named. Mrs. Antone fell to and we 
had a session over them. Some of the family 
scattered out and brought others; at last, as a sure 
climax, a dandelion I I really ought to have 
withheld my having seen one before. With this 
flower episode their minds considerably cleared. 
They could understand this; a person who was 
interested in flowers could not be very bad. 

About the islands the cotton-flower grows to a 
fine size, with its great white boll. It is "Mitten 
flower" here, Waw-lu-yuk. I asked if their people 
used to wear mittens of white bear cubs' fur, — 
"Yes, how did you know.?" The alder is "Green- 
flower," Ohiwi-uk. They do not eat the dande- 
lion; its name is Wis-uk-tuk, meaning, as I re- 
member, "Yellow flower." The mushroom or 
toadstool is "Devilflower." 

Antone had a fast, deep sailboat, and was 
generally prosperous that year. He had sold a 
silver fox for ^100, twelve white foxes and six 
reds, and besides had shot more than one hundred 
deer, mostly near by. "He was cracking at them 
every day," said old Abel. They needed that 



UN'SEKAT 117 

many deer, between family and dogs. When deer 
did not come to the shore A. had to go out to the 
open water for seals, and evidently did not much 
fancy this ice-edge alternative. The ice shifts 
out and in, and there is always a chance of being 
carried out to sea. The only birds at the ice 
edge are sea pigeons, white in winter. Antone 
looked me over when I spoke of liking to have a 
winter on the coast, and said, "You couldn't 
stand it." 

From my diary: "Caplin's eggs line the long 
beaches, sometimes three inches deep. Sand color 
or paler. The people dry caplin on the rocks 
whole for winter dog food. The ghost of a smelt 
in appearance, it is the rabbit of the water, on which 
everything else feeds. 

"There are eleven dogs altogether, five or six 
being puppies. So far from being without feeling 
for their masters, they are sociable and good com- 
panions. Like most dogs kept in numbers they 
are not quite so responsive as ours, but knock 
about the place in a stout, self-reliant way, hairing 
up readily at each other, but behaving pretty well 
at that. They are easily started off into a pan- 
demonium of howling. I have not heard them 
bark yet, though they do, I am told, under some 
circumstances. Immemorial use at the sleds has 
given them a peculiar bracing set behind, as if 
all ready to pull. All here are fat, living princi- 
pally on coarse fish caught in the trout nets, scul- 
pin, rock cod, and flounders, besides the waste 
from the trout, and by beach-combing about the 
shores on their own account." Curiously, they 
like the sculpins best of all, and not only they, 
but some people think very well of them. 

The dogs look singularly well, happy, and at 



118 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

home when living with Eskimo in this way, as in 
their glory; those I have seen in the bays have not 
looked as well off, and those of the mission villages 
and posts almost always seem inferior. 

Antone agreed to sail me to Fanny's when the 
weather improved, as it did in three or four days. 
The distance, some sixty miles, was too much 
for me to take on by canoe without large allowance 
for delays. I have never undertaken long dis- 
tances on the coast by canoe very willingly, either 
by day or night, the conditions are too uncertain. 
One year two young men of the shore, rather ven- 
turesome ones at that, were three weeks with a 
good sailboat going from Hopedale to Nain and 
back, although in winter the distance one way has 
been made in a single day with dogs. 

The day came at last. I was not glad to leave. 
People of wilderness places always stand at the 
shore as you go; and the women wave as you 
make the offing. 

It was only the Little Rattle this time. The 
current was strong and the place narrow. There 
was wind, but fast as the boat was she could not 
beat through. When we came about, the current 
took us back too far. Again and again Antone 
tried, then lay in the eddy until the tide slacked 
and we could pass the bar. Now Antone showed 
his quality and his craft hers. He would let me 
touch nothing, tiller nor sheet nor spar; I might 
have been a child. When I became cold he in- 
vited me to get into his fine seal sleeping bag, with 
its white blanket lining. I looked ruefully at my 
skin boots, wet and not too clean. "It can be 
washed," he said, shortly, and I slid in. The 
sheets, beautifully cut lines of some large seal, 
greased, small but unbreakable, all ran to cleats 



FOR FANNY'S HARBOR 119 

within Antone's reach as he sat at the tiller. With 
flying hands, the tiller let go, he would cast oflP and 
cleat the lines when we came about, as a master 
plays his keys; like a demon he would bound 
forward to hold some fluttering sail for an instant to 
the swing of the wind, and we never missed the 
turn. The waters he knew. At full speed, the 
boat lying over, he would dash for the rock shore 
until I quivered, then short about and off for some 
far point, where, as we swung by, terrorized eiders 
tore from under the lee and sea pigeons shot from 
below water into the air as if fired from guns. 
Recovered, the pigeons would swing afar and 
come close over again, peering down at us curiously, 
all black below, and their bright red feet steering 
behind. 

Later the wind eased. We passed Jim Lane's, 

two miles away, across the wide passage; he spoke 

regretfully of it when I saw him next, two years 

later, but we had feared losing the wind, and it 

was a long way to Fanny's. Jim is the best of the 

best! It calmed off finally. Somewhere about 

Shung-ho we met the Eskimo John and his wife, 

who were "going up to help Antone"; to help 

Antone do what is not important; I think it was to 

get out some "wood," timber we should call it, for 

a house. It would have been as well, as things 

went next day, if we had not met them. Not to 

invest useful John, good shot and good hunter, 

still less his ample wife, with the dignity of an 

evil genius, it would have been as well, just as it 

would have been if he had not reached Opetik 

sooner than I did the week before and kept William 

from going inland with me. We all landed on a large 

boulder with deep water around to boil a kettle 

and have tea. In landing J. sailed his boat 



120 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

square into my canoe — It was tailing behind 
our boat and made no apology. I was cold and 
cross, and snapped at him for doing it. He was 
impudent, I responded, and he in turn, and in 
the end threatened me. I couldn't "come into 
their country and growl this way." We were 
all on the boulder together. Antone was evidently 
a well-knit friend of Mrs. J., and began to look 
black as things came to a climax. No one likes 
to be held to the mark in the presence of his 
women folk, and Antone's position was not much 
easier than J.'s. It wouldn't do to recede, so I 
pulled off my gloves, slapped them down on the 
rock one by one, stood clear and waited. They 
were not boxers, the first one would go overboard. 
But Eskimo do not know when to stop, and, 
woman and all, the situation might become mixed. 
But nothing ever quite happens, not under the 
Union Jack, nor did then. 

We ate silently and parted. Some way along 
Antone tied up, and we slept uncomfortably in 
the boat, with flies. We were at Daniel's in the 
morning, where a kutshituk was again hopping 
about over the dogs. The wind rose strongly 
from south of east, and we made the post early. 
Antone had talked of getting some one to go to 
the cape with us, as he did not know the waters 
well. He needed some one, fairly, but there was 
no one to go, and in the end he gave out. The 
foot of the run was white, and he did not like to go 
into strange waters in such weather; moreover Mr. 
and Mrs, John were at Un'sekat waiting for him. 
The fine diplomatic hand of John, after our tiff, 
may have been concerned in the matter. 

I explained how ill it left me for the mailboat, 
and that I should have gone to Nain if he had 




Jim Lane 




A Bear, Bear Pond, 1905 



FOR FANNY'S HARBOR 121 

not said he would take me to Spracklin's, but he 
did not waver. Before long he walked off for 
his boat, the wind being fair, without asking for 
his pay. "Where are you going?" I put in, 
"Home." "Come back, I haven't paid you." 
He came, surprised, and I handed him five dollars, 
the first he had ever had, no doubt. He did not 
fall into the sea in his astonishment, but looked 
near it. For some time he hung about, trying to 
do things for me, and finally left with a good deal 
of light in his face, which has never failed in the 
years since whenever we have met. I doubt if 
the Un'sekat people had any thought of my pay- 
ing them, certainly not for taking care of me. 
As to boating me away from their place, it ob- 
viously had to be done, unless I was going to stay, 
and that was all there was about it. That I had 
worldly possessions to speak of, there or anywhere, 
did not enter their minds, I think. 

So it is in their world; the wanderer must have 
what he requires, shelter and food and help on his 
way if he needs it — these at least and of course. 

I asked the post people to put me across the 
big bay with their large boat, pointing out that it 
was no weather for canoeing, and offering to pay 
almost anything. But they refused; they were 
too busy. Cotter, however, was going down him- 
self on the second day after and would take me 
along; he would get there first anyway. (This 
I did not forget later.) But I was not willing 
to take chances on the steamer this time, and 
though I stayed over night at the post, which 
could not well be helped, I waited no longer. 

Here my diary becomes rather unjust and cer- 
tainly spiteful toward some pretty good people 
along the shore. I was a good deal exercised. 



122 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

The entry concludes, helplessly, "Well, here I 
am, wind bound, the look of rain in the clouds 
and a steamer to catch!" 

When I got off in the morning it looked im- 
possible to go beyond the foot of the run. The 
tide was going out strong, a swell coming in from 
the open, and a sharp white sea from the cape 
east. It made a jumping lop, striking at every- 
thing. All I had in mind was to drop down that 
far, camp, and be on the spot whenever it would 
do to go on; at least I was now fresh to row. 
Sometimes, however, things are better than they 
look. Inching gradually into the bad-looking 
mess at the foot of the run I found that the canoe 
was not taking the least water, and held on for 
some time. But the irregular motion, the pitch- 
ing and sudden jumps of the light canoe in the tide 
rips were so wearing that I gave up. There was no 
danger, and not much to do but balance and be 
thrown about, but the motion was too exhausting. 
Along the mainland was a line of "barricados," 
as often happens, boulders shoved up by the ice. 
They call them belly-carders here, in good faith. 
Behind them was a sand flat just awash, so that 
after passing between the boulders it was possible 
to walk along dry shod in skin boots and drag the 
canoe. It was easy going after the bobble of the 
run. Flowers' Bay, next, was out of the current, 
though lively, and by one o'clock I was across 
and boiling a kettle on the southern point. The 
swell was mostly cut off here by Massacre Island 
outside. Six hours more and I was across Lane's 
Bay. 

From the north side of the bay I had seen what 
looked to be some trap boats with masts a mile 
above the south point, but after two hours' rowing 



FOR FANNY'S HARBOR 123 

they turned out to be large schooners. I tried to 
talk with a skipper, and would not have minded a 
passing chat by the stove and a cup of tea, but 
he had all the shadowed reticence, and in that case, 
disagreeableness, of the skipper "on fish," afraid 
the word will be passed along and bring in other 
schooners; and I pulled away hoping never to see 
him or his again. Heavens! His countenance, 
save perhaps for the beard, few would care to have! 

An ill-natured extra mile against the tide and 
at right angles to my proper course, to Black 
Point, and the last stretch to the cape harbor 
opened up. It was slow work, all day. The 
canoe, wonderful as she was at keeping on top, 
at taking care of one whatever came, was apt to 
pound when against a short sea, and spattered up 
spray which rained down inboard. She had to be 
eased over the top of every wave. In the hour 
after lunch I may have made a half mile; the wind 
was strongest then, and the sea, though coming 
off the cape island and not high, was well whitened. 
It was not the pulling, but the incessant pitch and 
throw of the corky craft that told with the hours. 
Sitting in the middle leaves the boat wonderfully 
free to rise, balance, and elude what comes, but 
one's waist, which has to be the universal joint 
of all gyrations, gets hard wear. In flat water 
one could row forever. 

I have never seen a white man's canoe that 
would drive fast into a steep sea and keep dry. 
The lines of the sea creatures are not in them. 
The Indian's sea canoes are another matter. They 
can be driven. 

Once under the White Point, where the fog 
shut in on my night trip down, the water became 
level. At ten I was on the sand beach at the end 



124 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

of the cape harbor, after thirteen hours of actual 
rowing. It was unusually dark. My back was 
numb, and as I stepped about looking for white 
and visible bits of firewood, without much direct- 
ing power, it was as if on stilts, and it was no joke 
getting down to pick up a piece of wood when I 
found it. After awhile I got together enough to 
do with and what followed was worth while. 
It was a time to let out, and I cooked and cooked and 
smoked to the limit, content. It was good travel, 
it was good to make port. At such times one asks 
no odds of the world. 

After midnight I took a pack over the portage, 
meaning to continue around the harbor a mile 
and a half more, but the sloping rocks with water 
below would not do, dark as it was. I could not 
see my feet or footing much, and was unsteady in 
getting about, for the stilts continued. I was not 
too sure even of getting the canoe over the portage. 
By the time I was back for her, however, circula- 
tion was on again, and the stilts became legs. 
The tide was out, and gave me a nasty slow time 
getting out over the mud and again to the land 
on the other side. One wants an easy bit after 
eighteen hours on the road, and slipping around 
as if on banana skins at two in the morning with 
a canoe on is not sport. It seemed as if half the 
width of the harbor was only awash. After all, 
the canoe picked up lightly enough for the last 
lift above tide mark. 

Spracklin did not wake when I lighted a match 
over him and spoke, and knowing his desperate 
pace and short hours of sleep I turned away from 
his raised arms, bandaged for his many "pups," 
and pulling off my wet boots fell upon the narrow, 
one-sided old lounge and banked myself up against 



WAITING FOR THE VIRGINIA 125 

the back. Almost like the shutting of a steel trap 
I went dead to the world. The house had felt 
warm, coming from outside, but I ought to have 
covered myself. Damp from salt water and per- 
spiration, in an hour I woke up chattering, pulled 
out my sleeping bag and got in, and there Spracklin 
found my mortal semblance in the morning. 

The rest was not much more than getting home. 
For a day I sat about, ate a deal of fish, and slept. 
The second morning I was putting the canoe in 
to go jigging cod, when the stones rattled, and 
along the beach came Cotter, with young Jerry 
Oliver, bearing a box. They had been becalmed, 
nighted chilly on a barren rock without blanket 
or fire, and looked as if they had had enough of it. 
Then came my revenge; easily Cotter had said 
that he would gfet there first. We had some good 
talks the next days, and many in years following. 

It was Tuesday, the 11th, that I rowed down 
from the inlet; it was to be Monday, the 17th, 
before the mailboat came. Fish were still scarce; 
I have a note of six hundred quintals for each side. 
The nets had been out of water in some of the 
best fishing. Tom Poole, the foreman, and an- 
other of the crew rowed to an island far outside 
and jigged a boatload of large fish, jigging right 
and left, four lines to two men. They slat them 
off the hook over a crosspiece in front of the fisher; 
there is no time for fussing. 

From my diary: "August 15. A clear, warm 
day, all rocks and air and sunshine, a sea blue and 
sparkling, and a fine line of bergs passing south. 
Tall ice is never wanting on the eastern sky line; 
it gives the keynote to this barren rock region, its 
real latitude. 

"Some snow is left, always in the most sunny 



126 IN NORTHERN LABR.\DOR 

hollows under the ridges, where the northwest 
winds pile the deepest drifts. There is no level 
snow in winter, all is gathered behind something. 
The stream across from the stage is dried up, as 
I found on going over to fish. New flowers have 
come, not many, Redberries are eatable now, 
though in blossom a month ago; the forcing eft'ect 
of the long sunshine is remarkable. Young birds 
are about, sandpipers and the like, and land spar- 
rows. Snow buntings will be here soon, every- 
where. The gulls are nearly silent, the ravens 
still more so, but hold on in the ledges across the 
harbor. In the clear water off the landing stage 
rock-cod and sculpins work about the fishheads 
thrown over. Spracklin says there are clams 
here, which the "Eskimaws" eat. 

"I jigged cod at times, by an island near, in two 
or three fathoms' depth. A dozen fish would 
hang just over the jig in a close circle, heads in, 
making passes for it, and generally getting the 
hook under the broad jaw. The jig is sawed up 
and down fifteen or eighteen inches just over the 
kelp. In three or four easy jerks I would have 
a fish, and was sometimes well loaded down in a 
couple of hours. In the boat they yield a little 
like water with the motion of rowing, especially 
in a swell, and are a peculiarly dead load for a 
canoe. In a steep sea they might easily slide to one 
end and make trouble; compartments are the thing, 
to keep them distributed. 

"The jig is a cruel thing; many fish get away 
badly torn. The waste is great. ]Moreover, if 
we must kill, let us kill mercifully, at least as merci- 
fully as do most savages. The jigger, the steel 
trap, and the shotgun as commonly used, are 
maimers and torturers. 



WAITING FOR THE VIRGINIA 127 

When a fish is hurt he hurries away for the 
"doctor," a beetlish bug which fastens to the 
wound until it heals. This doctor and his mission 
are told of seriously on all the fishing coast. 
There is no questioning the doctor's existence and 
activity, though the motives for his attentions 
may well be suspected. 

"We have been eating cods' livers, tasting like 
concentrated fate de fois gras. They are rather 
too rich; if one eats many at a time the world is 
all cod liver that day. Subdued by parboiling 
they come in well. Technically they are "blub- 
ber," as all grease-bearing things are. The uni- 
versal blubber cask of the coast is strongly in 
evidence to all senses, including, when fermenta- 
tion is going on, that of hearing. 

"Sunday, 16th. No mailboat yet, though 
all felt that she would come. . . . Bruise for 
breakfast — good. S. and Tom Poole treating their 
'pups,' which come of the slime and wrist-work. 
They are bad to see. 

"It is half a jail matter, this waiting without 
being safe in going out of sight at all. In clear 
weather it is not so bad — one can go up on the hill 
and look for the steamer. In foggy weather it is 
wretched. No reading matter left. 

" Spracklin looks rested since the fishing slacked. 
He tells of the exact ways of the Hudson's Bay 
Company people. Their carefulness goes into 
post details; a former agent at the Inlet cut some 
timber himself, sawed the boards, and enlarged 
the dining-room. When the chief came along he 
had him pull it all down because it had not been 
reported. 

"Skipper Jim is not so afraid that I will fall 
to pieces now, remarking when Cotter was here 



128 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and we were sitting about with one or two visiting 
skippers. 'Do you know what I said to mys,elf 
about you the morning you came up on the stage ? 
I said to myself, 'Has that man come up here 
to die?' Then C. put in, in a tone of cheerful 
support, 'Well, I didn't see him then, but I saw 
him when he got to my landing! 

"It is a good vitalizing climate. The New- 
foundlanders say, when worse for the winter, 
*0h, well, I'll be all right when I get to the Labra- 
dor,' There is less fog than in Newfoundland, less 
housing with others who are sick, the light summer 
buildings are more sanitary. And fish-smells, 
however fierce, seem harmless." 

They can be trying nevertheless. The night 
before the mailboat came it was nearly calm, with 
an air from the great refuse pile under the stage 
straight to my window. It kept me awake. 
But for fear of another night of it I should have 
waited for the boat to come back from Nain, where 
it turned out she was going. However, the chance 
to see the place was worth taking. As we passed 
north outside the islands, familiar landmarks ap- 
peared far away along the mainland. Tuh- 
pungiuk was the plainest of them, a dozen miles 
away. There still, doubtless, were the Noahs, 
tending their nets. 

Further south there was much talk of Hub- 
bard, and some anxiety. He had gone light, and 
his prospects of success were doubtful, especially 
as it was thought he had no gill net, but I did not 
expect the tragedy that occurred. 

Towards the straits Norman Duncan came 
on with Briggs, his publisher's manager. Other 
Americans came on along, Hewitt, of Boston, 
climbing up the side with peculiar good will 




A Finback, Hawk Harbor 




The Beginning of the Pack, Cape Harrigan, 1905 



NEWFOUNDLAND 129 

after having had two or three weeks' waiting on 
short provisions. At Twilllngate, one of the best 
of the fishing towns, Duncan and Briggs and I 
spent a day or two of beautiful sunny weather, 
the very first of the summer there. Fog had 
prevailed every day until then. Fancy the women 
ghosting about all summer In the fog, the men gone 
"down to the Labrador!" Duncan stayed off at 
Exploits with his friends, the Manuels. Briggs 
and I took the Clyde to Lewisport, and went on 
by rail, parting at Boston. My summer recon- 
nolssance, planned by the printed timetables 
for three weeks if I did not stop off at Fanny's, 
five If I did, had lasted just seventy days. 



Chapter VI 
1904 

IN 1904 Robert Walcott and I left Boston by 
rail, July lis, without much intention beyond 
that of trying the Assiwaban River, perhaps 
staying inland over two steamer trips, nominally 
a month. The planning was merely a telephone 
matter — we were talking, found that both felt 
like going somewhere, and were off in a day or two 
without many words. I happened to know about 
sailing dates, also that there was a canoe to be had 
in St. John's. We bought the canoe by telegraph, 
and it was waiting us on board the Virginia Lake 
when we boarded her at Battle Harbor. It looked 
large, on the deckhouse, and when we walked 
over and lifted it our misgivings became fixed. 
She weighed one hundred and forty-one pounds, 
dry and light; although a canoe in shape and canvas 
skin, she only wanted rowing gear to be a good, 
stout rowboat. She was a good piece of work, 
her maker being that rare mechanic Gerrish of 
Maine, from whose camp on B Pond, years before, 
I had climbed an eastern hill and seen for the first 
time the grand southwestern rampart of Katahdin. 
Our doing much portaging with such a craft 
was out of the question. Still I remembered the 
blue Assiwaban stretching thirty miles inland 
without heavy rapids; we could go that far, surely. 
Our trip from Boston to Nain was a record one, 
nine days to an hour, allowing for change of longi- 
tude. We might have saved something like a 
day on that, if the captain of the Home, from Bay 

130 



NORTH AGAIN 131 

of Islands through the Gulf to Battle Harbor, had 
not held back unnecessarily, for the Virginia Lake 
had waited for us nearly or quite twenty-four hours 
as it was — for us two only, and on a perfect day 
such as really counts for two days on that foggy, 
uncertain coast. The feelings of Captain Parsons, 
as the hours went by, may be imagined, not to 
mention those of the discouraged passengers. 
Knowing the way of things there I felt as if we had 
murdered a steamer voyage, and hastily went 
below until we were off and in another air. 

Peter McKenzie, the Hudson's Bay Company 
manager, was on, and of all others to meet there, 
Stuart Cotter. He had made a new contract 
with the company, and was taking charge at 
Northwest River, but although all the Davis 
Inlet coast had believed that he would make the 
very most of his trip across the water he was 
still a bachelor. 

%. We were some time at Rigolet, and there the 
Hudson's Bay Company people got off. Captain 
Gray and the Pelican were waiting for them, and 
at a kind hint from Peter we were asked to go 
north by their ship. Chances looked better with 
the mailboat, and we did not change. It turned 
out better so, decidedly, for the Pelican took 
bottom in getting out of Cartwright, and it was 
many a day before she saw Davis Inlet again. 

McKenzie had nine wooden canoes, Peterboros, 
sixteen feet by thirty-eight inches by sixteen 
inches, strong and serviceable boats. He asked 
me what I thought of them, but did not say what 
I came to know afterward, that some or all of them 
were presents for his old Naskapi friends at 
Chimo. In all the North he was then known to 
the Indians as "Our Father McKenzie," and he 



132 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

deserved the title. During his twelve or fourteen 
years at Chimo he had saved them from starva- 
tion more than once by organizing their deer 
hunts. It is probable that no one else has ever 
had their confidence and affection as he did. He 
was part Indian himself, and the blood told, with 
whatever allowance for his remarkable personality. 

The Spracklins were not doing much as to fish. 
We had but a short visit, merely while the mail was 
being made up. Ellen was still the mainstay. 
The old place and people looked home to me, 
indeed. The little sunny sitting-room with the 
stove and the corner cupboard, the chairs and old 
lounge on which in conjunction we used to cobble 
up the lance net for my bed, were there unchanged. 
The room was always good to be in. Things had 
to be fairly near each other from necessity, but 
Spracklin was one of the few men who have a 
touch in living-rooms. One would as soon think 
of rearranging the fins on one of his cod as any- 
thing he had set about. I was there many a day 
before I saw how right the little place was. Men 
of the sea more than others, perhaps, can be 
shipshape without falling into the geometrically 
unpleasant. 

The place about, too, was always shipshape, in 
order. Spracklin was always painting things, 
boats and gear and buildings, down to the full 
round bull's-eyes accurately done in white on 
every door about the station. These helped one 
tell the door in the night, maybe, but Spracklin did 
it to label his entrances, his flat doors; it pleased 
his eye. 

We were at Nain at ten in the morning, and 
away southward by one. The feature of the 
voyage to Voisey's, some twenty-five miles, was 



THE NAIN PASSAGES 133 

the Eskimo boy, a waif about the mission, who 
went along to try to find the way. He had been 
over it only once, some time before. The navi- 
gation itself was on calm water and uninteresting; 
our craft was slow on water and a crusher on land. 
The boy paddled softly, he had never done it before 
and his arms ached. He took our nagging as im- 
perturbably as an old farm horse. We had to have 
what help" he could give, for the passages were 
wide, the shores high, and old saws about getting 
over your large waters while it is calm were all 
to the point. How the wind can blow in those 
long passages that stretch off below Nain! They 
are noble passages to see. 

I had said much to W. about grampuses, es- 
pecially about the grampus of Un'sekat, and 
when a very large one crossed our wake rather 
near, and snorted prodigiously, he certainly looked 
around. I think I had given him the impression 
that almost all grampuses came up under one's 
canoe. 

Where we lunched, some six miles down, below 
"the rattle," the boy wandered, unnoticed, and 
found some ptarmigan, but our flying shot went 
wide. The sharpness ot these young Eskimo in 
finding and seeing game of all sorts is remarkable. 
I have often thought they were quicker sighted 
than even the Indians. They are more highly 
energized, and they seem as absolutely fitted to 
the coast life as the seals themselves. The Indian 
is a little too far north here, being at his northern 
limit and probably beyond his natural latitudes. 
The extraordinary diversity of Indian and Eskimo 
both in genius and physical habit indicates a 
good deal of separation during their elder race 
history. 



134 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

The young eiders and sea pigeons were flying 
well by this date, and we shot quite a few as they 
flew by. It seemed as if no ducks were ever 
better than these eiders when they came out of the 
kettle next morning. 

The boy did visible thinking toward night, as 
we approached the Voisey's Bay waters. A deep- 
ish bay to the right bothered him in the twilight, 
and we spent a little time looking it over, finally 
camping just inside it on good moss. We were on 
Kikertavak, "Big Island," and some twenty miles 
from Nain, On the sea chart is shown a through 
passage west of this island, but according to the 
bay people it has no existence. Six miles south of 
Nain the inside passage, the one we were in, takes 
a turn west for a mile or more, then turns sharply 
to the southeast around a noticeable crested 
mountain, visible from far about. 

The morning of the 28th, as we were at the 
eiders, the boy came in from one of his little 
disappearances, whispering excitedly, "Deers!" 
Following him some way we came to a caribou, 
which Wolcott shot handily. It was our first 
large meat, and a good omen for the future. In no 
time to speak of the boy skinned the animal and 
cut it up. 

We were at John Voisey's at midday. His 
wife, one of the Lanes, had formerly worked at 
Spracklin's. John told of seeing me go by last 
year, and of painting his gable red. He wanted 
no more such slips. He had been up Assiwaban in 
winter, but turned out to be a good deal wrong as 
regards Indian camping places and their move- 
ments — the old story with the shore people. He 
went along with us in a flat to the fall, over six 
miles on the bay and four or five by river, to help 



ASSIWABAN 135 

portage. The rocks along the river were slaty 
and on edge, cutting our moccasined feet; we had 
a time getting the heavy canoe along to a place 
where we could turn up the bank. It was a 
heavy matter to do with the boat on any terms in 
bad ground, and not much easier for three of us 
at once than for one alone to carry it. John was 
nearly all in by the time we had made the portage, 
some three quarters of a mile, though it was on level 
ground once we were up the hundred-foot bank. 
It was very hot on the sunny river bank at the 
far end, perhaps ninety degrees. The shore people 
simply wilt at such times, strong as many of them 
are; they are not hot-weather people. John was 
easily glad to start back for his cool sea place, 
where he could get away from the flies as well 
as the heat. We were ready to camp ourselves, 
and did so a mile up the river, at a bend where 
the Indian trail to Opetik was plainly marked on 
the trees. Here the stream, five or six hundred 
feet wide, is easy, winding in three or four long 
swings through a timbered sand plain with hills 
a mile away on each side. Some of the river banks 
are high and of sliding sand, the lower ones clothed 
with moss and alders, besides some black spruces, 
but what there are of these last, and they are 
rather scattering, grow mostly over the river plain. 
One can pass about freely almost anywhere, save 
for the damp alder places; and white cladonia, 
the caribou moss, carpets most of the level ground. 
There are some few trout in all eddies below 
gravel points, but they are not always abundant, 
however, for some miles. Trout are the common 
fish of the river, often visible sculling along in the 
gravel shallows singly or in pairs, only a foot or 
two from shore, turning in now and then and 



136 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

rubbing noses against the dry land, hunting the 
water line like deliberate spaniels. We saw rather 
few in the first fourteen miles. At five or six 
miles from the falls the sand plain ends and a strong 
water-worn ledge on the north side marks the 
entrance to the real river valley. This, for seventy 
miles, would be called a caiion in the West. The 
steep sides drop six hundred to eight hundred feet 
almost into the river for twenty-five miles above the 
falls, and from there the headlands are more 
or less sheer to a height of ten or twelve hundred 
feet. All the side streams save at the main forks 
discharge in ribbon falls, most of them emerging 
from very perfect examples of hanging valleys, 
and their white ribbons sometimes begin to show 
nearly a thousand feet above the river. These 
brooks do not amount to much in dry times, but 
in the great melting period of spring the valley walls 
of the upper river must be a lively sight, and the 
rush and roar tremendous. Even in summer, 
after long rainy periods, it is not too pleasant to be 
camped near some of the high brooks. Gusts of 
wind bring the sound from some high-up overfall 
in a startling way, carrying it off again in a few 
seconds almost to stillness. The sound is rasping 
in the pent-in river valley. 

At the narrow falls near tide-water the river 
chokes back in very high water, and must be placid 
and lakelike there for a good many miles up. 
That year we left a caribou carcass on the upper 
beach at our first camp above the falls, and a 
year or two later I found the weathered skeleton 
unmoved, though it was on a point and especially 
exposed to whatever current was running. 

On the afternoon of our first day's travel above 
the falls the swift gravel bars were almost too much 




u 



TROUT 137 

for us to get over, save by wading with a tracking 
line. By camping time our lumbering boat had 
been spitefully christened "The Raft," and still 
bears the name in reminiscence. She has never 
been taken above the falls since that trip. 

We camped at a slight point where spring ice 
had shoved up the river gravel. The river was 
swift here, and we looked for trout in the eddy 
below the point along the bank, where the water 
was still and had a little depth. While I was 
getting things going at the camp two or three rods 
back from the edge of the bank on a luxurious 
white moss level, Walcott took his grilse rod to the 
point for fish. After a while I looked out, but not 
much seemed to be doing, though W. looked all 
intent. It developed that there were "some 
heavy things in there"; he had lost some tackle 
on them. His gut was no doubt old and brittle, 
for grilse tackle will land almost anything if sound. 
The sun had been hot and the fish taking lightly. 
Shortly they showed a better spirit and the few 
necessary fish came in, the best toward three 
pounds' weight. 

As darkness came on we were sitting by the 
fire when a heavy splash came from under the bank, 
and others followed. We listened, a little startled, 
then knew that it must be trout. All along the 
eddy they sounded, for a hundred yards. As my 
diary has it, "It sounded at times like a dozen 
muskrats on a rampage, and was really startling 
in the still evening." Such an appeal to one's 
fishing instincts I had never met with before. 

"We went down and fished awhile, and though 
it was rarely possible to see the flies on the water 
for the darkness, the large fish found them well 
enough and came in fast. Three or four would 



138 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

jump at the fly at once, and must have knocked 
each other about considerably. They were fran- 
tic. We could not use many, and as the mosqui- 
toes were raging we retreated soon to our smoke 
at the tent. The splashing continued long and 
began again before daylight." 

The "heavy things" that had done damage 
to W. were, I now think, namaycush, the great 
lake trout of the North, which may be of almost 
any size and in quick water is a hard puller. In 
deep water they bore around and around in circles 
and down. Their habitat reaches at least as far 
south as a New Hampshire pond a few miles from 
the Massachusetts line. In Maine they are 
"togue," in northern New Hampshire "lunge," in 
Quebec, "tuladi," or gray trout; Indians know 
them as "kokomesh" or "namaycush." 

Caribou had walked many of the beaches, and 
wolves, though the number of individual animals 
concerned was small. An occasional fox also had 
run the shores, and a smallish bear or two. 

A mile or so above our trout camp is the 
Natua-ashish, "Little River-lake" of the Indians. 
It is less than a mile wide at the widest, and per- 
haps four long, with steep hills to the south. As no 
noticeable drainage comes in on that side, what 
water there is may go to Side Brook. Invariably, 
about the outlet, from one to four lesser shel- 
drakes start up, always rather wild. 

We had learned to pole together by the second 
day, and could get ahead well in the swift places. 
Above the little lake, however, an east wind came 
up river behind and a cloth of forty-five square 
feet took us along well. After six or eight miles 
again came a widening, with portentous dark cliffs 
which continued for some miles. The lake did 



THE WIND LAKE 139 

not look as long as it really was, and though a sea 
was rising we kept on. Water began to come in, 
and there was no good place to land on the south 
side where we were. Still a good deal of the shore 
was only rock debris from the cliffs above and 
could be climbed, and we kept pretty close in. The 
pace soon became very fast, we thought twelve 
or fourteen miles an hour. It was a wonder that 
everything held, but the speed relieved the strain 
a little, A smooth canoe eighteen or twenty 
feet long can make a wonderful pace before the 
wind, and if fairly flat and balanced a little high 
in the bow will tend to slide itself up over the waves. 
For my part I was very dubious along by the cliff 
headlands; they did not look very high while 
ahead, nor far, but they were, and it seemed as if 
we could never reach and get by them. W. 
seemed steady; he was used to racing boats, and I 
relied on his showing some sign if things looked 
half as doubtful to him as they did to me. A 
year or two afterward he talked about it. He had 
been about as uncomfortable as I, but knew 
that I had seen a good deal of open canoes, and I 
looked easy. We finally cleared the narrows and 
the wind had a chance to spread. It was still 
a lively lake sea, but we reached a sand beach 
without swamping. 

Knowing the place better, as the worst wind 
lake anywhere, I would not think of going into 
it again under such circumstances, though a west 
or northwest wind is probably more to be regarded 
there than one from east such as we had. The 
hills are shaped so as to collect wind from either 
way. Long, plough-shaped slopes swing around 
to the southwest side and concentrate everything 
from west to north against the high rock faces of 



140 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the narrows, and from them remarkable bolts of 
wind sometimes shoot downwards, striking ir- 
resistibly. When we came back through the lake 
we saw where a great ball of wind had come down 
on a timbered shelf on the north side of the nar- 
rows, knocking everything flat, then bounding 
over some standing trees to a lower shelf and ap- 
parently rolling down into the lake. It left the 
stripped white tree stems combed flat like grass 
to the water side. This may well have happened 
while we were passing, as we were too preoccupied 
on the other side of the narrows to observe it, and 
we remembered no recent wind as strong as the 
one that day. Two or three canoes of Indians 
were struck by a gust some years ago and all were 
drowned. Their people who travel there now 
naturally show a good deal of consciousness about 
the place. They know it as Natua-ashu, a name 
which is generic for a river — lake or expansion. 

We sounded the lake just above the narrows 
when going down river, finding it two hundred and 
seventy-five feet deep at about two hundred and 
fifty yards from shore. What depths would be 
found farther out is hard to say. I have always 
meant to take time there and find out, but the 
impulse to get through the place and be done 
with it has been too strong. 

The ice must become very thick here, swept of 
snow as it is by the gales, and it doubtless stands 
immovable against the first spring breakup. Then, 
apparently, the lake backs up for two or three 
miles. Upon the first wide levels sand and drift- 
wood are deposited, higher up the gravel, this 
getting coarser and coarser as the channel narrows. 
For two or three miles the stream flows very swift, 
silent, and shallow over pea gravel, which is al- 



THE RIVER VALLEY 141 

most as unstable as quicksand, and curiously 
bothersome to get over, whether one paddle, pole, 
or wade. 

To the north, once past the lake, the country 
breaks back a little, with a slight valley, which 
for once is not quite a hanging valley. Here, in 
winter, the shore people of one shade or another, 
mostly dark enough, leave the river for the high 
level to hunt deer. Some say they know the river 
a little farther up, but if they do they have shocking 
memories for natural features. Even concerning 
the "Big Lake," the Natua-ashu, their descrip- 
tions are often weak. There were "Indian poles 
all around it" — but we saw not one. It is the 
very last place to camp, save when windbound, or 
perhaps at the extreme lower end. The shore 
people's stories of it are hard to account for. 
Sam Bromfield's son Abram, one of the most pre- 
sentable youths of the shore, asked me if what he 
had heard was true, that you could sail a trap 
boat all the way up into the Big Lake, and when 
you were there the shed hair of the seals was knee 
deep around the shores ! Being a seal hunter he 
was much lighted up by the tale. Yet the seventy- 
five foot fall is at the very head of tide, and the 
bay people go there often. Under this fantastic 
imagination as to things inland is the demonology 
of the Eskimo, which places all sorts of evil spirits 
there. 

From the narrows to the main forks is four or 
five miles. The Mistastin comes in from south at 
right angles, but in two or three miles recovers 
its course from nearly west. The main river 
valley, more and more walled in, carries on straight 
west for some thirty miles more. The forks 
camping place, a few hundred yards up the Mis- 



142 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

tastin, Is my favorite of all the region. There 
were many Indian poles, mostly winter ones. An 
ample white moss level, with sparse spruce and 
larch, extends south until cut off by the westward 
swing of the Mistastin, and over this plain caribou 
paths led like spokes of a wheel to our camping 
place at the forks. The few actual tracks were 
old. Successive fine terraces extend nearly from 
river to river a little west of the forks; on the 
southwest the level line of their last high escarp- 
ment against the sky, turning with a square corner 
up the Mistastin, is singularly fortification-like 
and imposing from points on the lower terraces. 
The dignity of the level line in landscape is rarely 
more evident than here. Back of the terraces is a 
sharp ascent to the rolling high level, here nearly 
a thousand feet above the river. 

That first afternoon we went Mistastin way, 
for it had been fabled by John Voisey that the 
Indians used that stream. It turned out shallow, 
rapid, and unboatable, running over rough boulder 
gravel for many miles. From a valley with ponds 
to the south a large rushing branch comes in 
and above it the Mistastin is visibly smaller, 
though even at the forks it is less than the main 
Assiwaban. But its valley is one of the main 
features of the country; at some time a great 
drainage has come that way. From that side was 
laid down the broad river-plain and by these 
waters were cut the terraces. 

On one of the higher terraces an Indian hunter, 
a year or two before, had placed boughs on the snow 
to sit upon while he watched the wide river level 
for deer. We saw a few wolf signs about these 
terraces, and some of bear, with two broods of 
willow ptarmigan, these quite tame. 



ROCK PTARMIGAN AND SHRIKES 143 

The next day we explored the high level 
country between the rivers, a region of rolling 
barrens with small lakes. It was really unex- 
plored ground. The outward route of the In- 
dians traverses some of the lakes, but we saw no 
signs of it then. In wiry grass by a brook 
were some beautiful rock ptarmigan, running 
fast with heads low, and rising suddenly with a 
cackle for their short flights. They were utterly 
indistinguishable when motionless, simulating the 
stones, which were light colored with black and 
gray lichens. In the hand the birds seemed most 
conspicuous, with their large white underpatches. 

In a place among the hills that was slightly 
sheltered and had a few scattering trees we saw 
a half dozen shrikes ; I am not sure that I had ever 
seen more than one at a time before, any^where. 
They eat small mice, and of course birds, but 
the horned larks which were about would seem too 
large for shrikes to manage; in numbers they could 
do so. But the mice everywhere about that year 
were more than abundant enough for all shrikes. In- 
dians give the unpleasant name of Torturer to the 
shrike, for it plays with its victims like a cat, 
picking them gradually away. To the eye the 
bird offers no suggestion of being predatory, much 
less of being revoltingly cruel. Most predatory 
creatures, however beautiful, suggest the destroyer 
in some way, by their claws or beaks or teeth at 
least, but the slight down-nib of the shrike is 
scarcely noticeable, while his gray and dark effect 
suggests the peaceful and Quakerish. In com- 
pany with a mocking bird and a cuckoo, he would 
look to be a creature of about the same ways. It 
hurts to find so amiable looking a creature of this 
aspect with such bad instincts toward its own 



144 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

nearest kind. Whether or not murderers are 
usually labelled as such by Nature, we always 
expect them to be. 

In the afternoon a wolverene came loping, 
woodchuck like, across the way, at eighty yards. 
W. sat down on the sloping ground for a steady 
shot and I whistled sharply. The animal faced 
and stopped. A handsome shot W. made, just 
under the chin and from end to end. It was a 
strong-looking brute. An autopsy proved it 
full of mice. We skinned it and took the broad 
skull. I, chiefly, had officiated, and an astonishing 
musty smell remained on my hands. To live it 
down might take weeks, I thought, but in a day 
or two it faded away. 

We were pleased over our wolverene episode, 
for one might be a long time in the country without 
seeing one, especially in summer, and it is an inter- 
esting species. This one may have weighed forty 
or fifty pounds. No creature is so hated in the 
North, for none is so cunning and destructive, none 
so hard to destroy. Its practice of carrying off 
and hiding what it cannot eat gives the im- 
pression of actual malice, especially as it burglar- 
izes not only eatables, but all sorts of equipment, 
even to the camp kettle. Once snow has leveled 
over its tracks its hidings are safe. Caches have 
to be placed high for any security, with an over- 
hanging platform. Many an Indian, and even 
many a family, has perished by the agency of this 
evil genius of the North. "We know he is pos- 
sessed of an evil spirit," Indians say, "because he 
has been the death of so many persons." Steel 
traps he understands, and is rarely caught, but 
pulls out the back of the pen and gets the bait 
without penalty. He may follow a line of traps 



A WOLVERENE 145 

for forty miles, taking every bait and whatever 
game has been caught. Sometimes he is outdone 
by the "double set" — one trap set as usual, for 
him to avoid, another concealed with all art in an 
unusual position. Stories of the occasional cir- 
cumvention of the pest are cherished among the 
hunters. 

When the Indians do catch one they sometimes 
torture him in mere exasperation, as well as to 
deter the other wolverenes from pursuing their 
evil ways, for by agencies we do not recognize 
they will know the victim's fate. 

The beast inspires vindlctiveness in most 
amiable persons. While McKenzie was at Chime 
he had some traps out and was troubled by a 
wolverene family. Although he managed to catch 
the young ones, the old mother was too clever 
for him, and he finally resorted to a spring gun 
with a bait, and four steel traps set about. When 
the beast pulled on the bait the gun only snapped 
without going off, but, startled, the animal jumped 
and landed in one of the traps, and by the time 
Peter came along she had picked up two or three 
more. 

Peter related that he sat down and looked at 
her awhile, then took a stick and beat her well, 
and so on for some time before he killed her. 
As Peter had a singularly amiable temperament 
the incident may be taken as showing that few 
dispositions can bear the wolverene test. 

The carrying off of things that are of no use 
to the creature concerned seems to go with an 
unusual degree of Intelligence, as In the crow kind, 
the jays, and the well-known mountain rat of 
the West. This last creature, not really a rat at 
all, by the way, stops at nothing. A tent with a 



146 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

floor is his natural abiding place. Shoes, hair- 
brushes, all toilet things that are within his 
strength disappear under the floor of nights. In 
Idaho, long ago, one of them stripped us without 
compunction, until at last we pulled up a floor 
board and watched as we could. As we were 
sitting silently one day, the rat's furry tail was seen 
to move in the end of a joint of stovepipe. We 
clapped pieces of board over the ends of the pipe 
and carried it some distance away before letting 
the rat out. Intelligent, he took the hint and 
never came back. 

From the higher hills that day we observed 
widely. The Mistastin valley appeared to ascend 
rather rapidly southwest. North, across the Assi- 
waban, where the view was far, the country had 
almost no trees, was smoother and more barren, 
the surface less covered in. Our last view north 
and west was from a great headland of the Assi- 
waban, some ten miles above the forks. This 
promontory is mostly sheer, and thirteen or 
fourteen hundred feet high. A golden eagle 
hung over the river, a little below our level, the 
sun touching well his bronze back. He was in 
keeping with the cliffs and depths below, and 
the wide, barren, but inspiring wilderness that 
stretched away at our level. I have seen few 
eagles in the country; all were the golden species. 

Save for the Mistastin not one side stream, 
in all probability, comes into the river at the valley 
level, from tide water to the plunging falls by which 
the stream descends from the plateau. On the 
north side there are no branches at all save for 
inconsiderable tumbling brooks, and the length 
of river I have observed must be as much as sixty 
miles in a straight line. The north side of the 



A LONG VALLEY WALL 147 

river valley is almost a wall, sloping or sheer, from 
end to end. There is nothing like a notch for fifty 
miles, and then only a V-shaped ravine, with a 
trifling brook, and rising sharply to the plateau 
level. 

It is much the same with Labrador valleys 
all the way southward around to the Saguenay, 
which is the great type of the Gulf and East 
Coast rivers. Not one, save the Assiwaban, 
that I know of, but has more than one deep-cut 
side valley in its entire length. 

Scattered over the country as they were let 
down by the ice are unnumbered erratic boulders. 
They are conspicuous on many of the ridges at a 
great distance. A curious kind of boulder occurs 
here and there which weathers down into light- 
brown rhomboid fragments the size of stove coal; 
they must have come from somewhere west and 
north. 

Until we turned back for camp there had been 
some breeze in our faces, and no trouble from mos- 
quitoes. Now they accumulated rapidly and were 
as bad as I have ever seen them even on these 
white moss barrens. They covered W.'s long 
back in a solid brown mass. He would ask me to 
scrape them off, but I could not make up my mind 
to do it with my hand, and always got a branch 
to clear the repulsive swarm off with. I did not 
have as many as W., my coat being smooth; they 
like fuzzy cloth and light-colored surfaces. The 
last four or five miles into camp we were hard 
pushed, came in running, and were punished well 
while trying to start a fire. 

There were a good many showers that trip, in 
fact sun-showers are the summer feature away from 
the coast, and often it took a little time to start 



148 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

a fire; at least, one of us had to hold the match 
until it was almost wholly burned. While the 
match was burning we could not brush mosquitoes 
without agitating the air and putting it out, and 
the enemy would settle down fast on our hands. 
Meanwhile the operator was defenseless. We 
agreed afterward that the most trying experience 
of the summer was having to hold the match 
until it burned out. 

The high barrens are fully as bad as any other 
place, little as they look it, and there mosquitoes 
are largest. In bushy places and sometimes close 
to water black flies are troublesome, but they go to 
sleep at night and one can get along, while the 
mosquitoes keep on. They try one's nerves. 
Low tells of one of his young men who was taking 
a round of angles somewhere in this country; he 
persevered for a time, though hard pressed, but 
finally dropped his hands and burst into tears — 
it was too much. 

If Walcott had known how he looked the first 
three days on the river he would have needed good 
courage to keep on. He was swelled up nearly 
to blindness; his nearest friend would hardly 
have known him. By the third day the swelling 
goes down and does not again appear, for that 
season at least. This 1904 trip was the worst for 
heat and flies of any I have had in the Northeast. 

It is a blessed thing that mosquito torture 
vanishes easily from the mind when the actual 
infliction is over. So it was that evening at the 
forks ; once in the smoke, and equilibrium restored, 
we thought only of the interesting day. Neither 
of us had ever been in really unexplored ground 
before, and that day we had probably overlooked 
one thousand square miles of which It was im- 




m 



CQ 




AN INDIAN VISIT 149 

possible to get any description at the shore. It 
was not only fresh ground, but inspiring to look 
upon and walk over. A country more inviting to 
the feet would be hard to find; one never knows 
when to stop. 

Here the variation of the compass was about 
forty-one degrees. The place was about forty-six 
miles from the mouth of Assiwaban as we had come. 
The trout here evidently belonged to Mistastin 
waters, brilliant, beautiful fish, not rangy like those 
of the main stream, and their quality was more 
than skin deep. 

At 4.30 in the morning we were awakened by 
the sound of a paddle working against a gunwale 
down toward the main stream. Looking out of 
the tent, a canoe with two Indians was turning 
up from the main stream to our place. When 
they saw us the sound of the paddles quieted; it 
had been their door bell, for wilderness people 
do not approach one's house unannounced. A 
white man might have shouted, but these people 
avoid calling out, and all other sounds that startle. 
They were a man and boy, in an empty canoe, 
without arms. I knew them both from the year 
before, and was able to give them photos of them- 
selves. There were seven more of them, they said, 
just below. They accepted tea and bread, but 
declined the bacon. The man took up a little 
cache nearby, and a tin can which we had noticed 
just back of the tent hanging to a tree. We 
talked awhile, and he drew a map on the sand 
showing the high portage and some of the country 
beyond. After half an hour he asked for a gun 
and cartridge, with which he promptly fired a 
signal shot, which was answered from below 
around the bend. Presently more firing came, 



150 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

with a peremptory sound, and our guests started 
away, we putting in and following, to see the rest 
of the party. 

A noticeable thing had happened when I 
showed them a group picture taken at the post 
the year before. They were interested and pleased, 
picking out the faces easily, until they came to 
one of a man who had died during the year. The 
effect was remarkable, the man looked almost 
frightened and his voice sank. "Tshipi," he said, 
"A spirit." His disquietude was evident. 

The people below turned out to be young men, 
in charge of a younger man I had met before, who 
withal was somewhat inflated by his temporary 
dignity. There seems to be always a chief, some 
one in authority, wherever Indians are found. 

When they saw us coming on, in the big canoe, 
they laughed at something one of them said about 
us. I doubt if it was really our bad paddling or 
absurd way, indeed, of sitting, though it may 
have been these. It is likely, rather, that they 
saw what guys we would be on the high portage 
with such a craft, and on the long portages beyond. 
There is no telling, however, what may seem the 
funniest thing to them when a white man is trying 
to do Indian things. 

I showed the group picture again, among others, 
and while they were interested and picking out 
the faces watched to see if they also took notice 
of the one who had died. I should have known it 
with my back turned, for the same "Tshipi" was 
whispered, the same silence and uneasiness came 
over all, and very shortly they renewed their 
preparations to embark. 

Their being shaken was not very strange. To 
be presented unexpectedly with the speaking like- 



A DISTURBING PICTURE 151 

ness of one near and intimate who has just died is 
naturally affecting to any one; it would be to one 
of ourselves. Nevertheless the extreme awe that 
was shown, resulting in such curiously identical 
manifestations of manner and words, seemed more 
than one would expect. In truth, as I came to 
know in time, seeing the picture was to their minds 
perilously near to seeing the departed. Anything 
belonging to a person who has died is in their 
view of most doubtful omen to the living; even 
the name is not to be spoken, and if another has 
the same name it is changed. A lapse in these 
things results in distress to the departed spirit, 
and it may be in visitations by the tshipi upon 
those behind. And ghosts, the world over, are 
not welcome visitors. 

We soon parted; they expected to be back in 
four days. This looked unlikely, for they could 
not possibly tell how long the salt water voyage 
would take, even though they reached Opetik that 
night. We agreed to look for them, however. 

It was W.'s first view of Naskapi; their ir- 
responsible look took him between wind and water, 
particularly certain flannel shirts, worn outside, 
for a deerskin breechcloth does not lend itself to 
ordinary dispositions. These, with their uncon- 
ventional legs, were a bit unusual. I explained 
that they merely called the shirt a sweater, and 
wore it outside. 

We went back to camp and took a day off, mend- 
ing and knocking about near by for a few birds 
and fish. I boiled W.'s wolverene skull and cleaned 
it partly, though not enough; it raised a fearful 
smell in the boat later. The meat looked so good 
boiled that I cut off a bit and found it perfectly 
eatable. The Indians eat it only when starving, 



152 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and "Carcajou-eater" is a fighting word in some 
regions; nor will they ordinarily put the skin 
with others, but tie it to the sled somewhere outside* 
Some will not sell so hated and despised a thing, 
though they let the women trade them if they want 
to. 

The river above, to the high portage, became 
swifter and swifter, often too much so for us to 
pole. W. had a pair of lace boots, admirable for 
wading, and with his long legs would wade up the 
swift stretches as fast as I could get along the shore 
with a pole to fend off, which I did mainly to save 
appearances. There is little fishing above the 
forks, and what trout we got about the eddies near 
the portage were not much over a pound weight, 
that I remember. The portage matched the 
Indians' description well, and I felt sure it was the 
place, but W., who had not understood the talk, 
was very doubtful, as he had every right to be. 
The place looked impassably steep and high. Part 
of it is a steady, virtually pathless climb of eight 
hundred feet, the whole height from the river up 
being eleven hundred feet. One really needs hands 
as well as feet a good deal of the way. The 
finding of Indians' tracks leaving the river settled 
all questions of being in the right place, but we soon 
lost what trail there was and went up where the 
climb was over twelve hundred feet. The Indians 
use the portage only when going down river. We 
spent some hours off west and southwest, seeing 
many ponds and the smooth, bold ridges of the 
height of land some miles beyond, but we did not 
see the actual divide that year. Deer tracks were 
few. There were some few ptarmigan about, 
fairly grown; we lunched off some of them beside 
one of the ponds. 



DOWN RIVER 153 

We discussed a walking trip. While it seemed 
feasible to get the canoe up the hill in the course of 
a day or two, it was beyond us to get it on over the 
long portages westward. If the next day, August 
6th, had been decently cool and the flies had not 
been unusually fierce, I think we should have made 
a few days' walk, though we were rather limited 
as to possibilities. Without a canoe we could not 
do much with the lakes, and we had in mind no 
special objective; on the other hand, we could easily 
catch the next steamer back, and this was some 
object to us both that year. Finally we turned 
back down river again, after a swim and a time of 
drying damp outfit. There had been many show- 
ers, and our things had become uncompanionable. 

It was remarkable how long the distance seemed 
down the swift water to the forks, and the rough 
places looked worse than coming up. Judging by 
both time and distance we thought it must be 
twenty miles. But going down a current one 
follows around the very widest swings of such a 
river as it goes from side to side of the valley. We 
may actually have gone twenty miles, but a fair 
estimate down the middle of the reaches might 
be nearer fifteen. 

We had a little dread as the wind lake came on, 
lest it turn another gale upon us, but it stayed 
perfectly calm. We held on until eleven to get 
through, dropping down to sleep on a flat sand bar 
without a tent, flies or no flies. On the 7th, 
next day, the two great pools in the trout reach 
were full of twenty-inch fish, nibbling quietly 
at the myriad black flies which lay in wavy lines 
and patches on the water. The ripples of these 
fish looked like those of five or six inch chubs, 
taking flies carefully without|showing themselves. 



154 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

But every one of those little ripples stood for near 
three pounds of fish, certainly two and a half. 
A very large one struck my fly and bored heavily 
down, presently getting away with the hook and 
snell through a careless knot. In a moment there 
was a heavy splash and the fish ran on his side 
for the shore, shaking his head to get rid of the 
fly. He was nearly all out of water for two 
or three hundred feet and looked at least six 
pounds. Reaching the shore he nearly grounded 
for good, but got off. He was doubtless a namay- 
cush, though there is no reason why the fontinalis 
should not grow to almost any size there. This 
pool is nearly half a mile long and a thousand feet 
wide, a great feeding-ground in summer. The 
deep wind lake above must make an unusually 
good wintering place for all fish, especially during 
the hibernation periods some of them indulge in. 
There are whitefish in the river, and this year, 
1910, I was interested at finding on the shore 
a ling, or fresh-water cod, of sixteen inches. As 
to the size of trout, I have weighed sea trout up 
to eleven pounds at the shore, and have seen one 
or two after they were split that were surely up to 
fourteen. The bay people speak of very large 
fontinalis, fresh-water trout, in certain streams 
near the Assiwaban, and doubtless reliably, for 
these salt-water fishermen are not excitable about 
fish weights. 

A few miles above the falls W. saw a caribou 
stag on the shore and handsomely gave me the 
shot. It took three well-placed 30.30s to get him 
off his feet; they are often that way, but the 30.30 
is not a smasher. 

On the morning of the 8th we passed the 
Indian portage, leaving some forty pounds of 



DOWN RIVER 155 

flour for the returning party, who were not nearly 
on time; it was more than five days since they had 
left us, instead of the four they had laid out. On 
the large boulders below the falls were some 
twenty seals, left high by the tide, and looking 
odd enough there, one capping each rock, with 
head and tail far overhanging. One by one they 
slid off. We had the deer-meat and let them swim 
close without firing. 

A little thing happened at the mouth of the 
river which may have a moral. Edmund Winters 
and his large family were there fishing trout and 
sealing. As the tide was in we did not land, but 
Edmund followed us along the shore with ob- 
vious intention, so we turned in and waited. He 
had a pair of seal trousers he wanted to sell, with 
a little wall pocket or two made of loon skins, 
worth perhaps $2 or ^3 altogether. We did not 
want them, and had nothing less than a $S bill. 
After some talk I ungraciously took them and 
handed over the bill, telling him not to think 
every Yankee traveler was going to pay double 
price. I appreciated the size of his tremendous 
family a little. Two years later I came to his 
place in something of a pickle, and he and his 
wife volunteered a very good and unexpected turn 
to help me. A case of bread upon the waters. 

Voisey took us to Nain in his long, keelless trap 
boat. She could run and reach, but this was 
beating, and in a cold northeaster three or four 
degrees above freezing. We had two shivering 
days of it. Once we towed the canoe under, had 
to let go, and afterward round up a sea of scattered 
oars, paddles, and what not, in a lively slop. 
Again I was not sorry for having held on very 
long sometimes in the other kind of weather on this 



156 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Jekyl-and-Hyde coast. You get chilled and cir- 
culationless and miserable, the back wind from the 
sails penetrates like a forced draught, which it is. 
Winter travel inland, in less clothes, at forty and 
fifty degrees below zero is nothing to it. Yet these 
seals of people who live in the bays can sit in a 
boat a week, I believe, and beat into the wind 
happily. 

We slept in the boat the first night. Some- 
where on Paul's Island, where we tented com- 
fortably the second night, a pair of the light- 
colored gyr-falcons of the coast shrilled fiercely in 
their wonderful flights about the cliff above us. 
Their nest was there. Tkey are not disguised, 
wolves in sheep's clothing, as are the shrikes. 
The expression of every feather and outline, every 
note of their cry, is unmistakable. Fierce, they 
are beautiful, admirable. They were numerous 
that year, nesting on many cliffs of the islands, and 
far inland. 

We were traveling by the large passage next 
east from the one we had gone south from Nain by, 
and by the middle of the forenoon, the 10th, were 
in sight of Nain bay and could see our uncertain 
steamer if she came in. If we had lost her we 
should have been black enough about it. By 
noon we were in Nain, and as things were, with 
four days to wait. The Virginia had waited three 
extra days for the races at St. John's, and laid by a 
day for the northeaster. We might have seen the 
height of land, and at least one of its great lakes, 
and not missed her. And the Indians. So we 
know now. 

Of the kindness of the mission, of the atmos- 
phere of the old consecrated life there, long es- 
tablished, the old garden of weathered spruce and 




On the liiGii Portage. 1 he steeper part is below 




A Good Roof 



NAIN 157 

larch stretching back under the protecting hill, its 
paths once paced by feet now passed to better 
walks, — these things have been told by other 
pens. It was for us a peaceful time. 

W. turned from his vision of cat-like, furtive 
land savages to the sturdy, cheerful, available 
Eskimo, tamed and instructed — with decision, 
and wandered hills with Aaron, a good man who 
spoke English. 

What I did has faded. I doubtless had talks 
on the wharf and lingered meanwhile on memories 
of what had been. In time W. returned, and we sat 
by the real shrine of the days, a large jar of tobacco. 
Even Aaron, with his Eskimo smile, Aaron the pre- 
sentable, had not endured. Perhaps it was only 
that the shooting he took W. for came out small, 
that his fish did not bite well. He was really a 
good man; still his English was too good, he had 
once been out in the world. 

Then I took him up, with dreams of my own. 
Aaron knew the inland. He had been far in in 
winter, even to "Ungava Pond." It was a long 
way in, and very large; you could not see the shores 
across. It was one hundred miles wide. The 
Great Grampus lived there, who raised tremendous 
seas and hauled boats under. 

Here was opportunity. I began a map, carried 
it as far as I could myself, then brought A. into 
it and we proceeded; he w^as definite enough and 
things prospered. I was elated. We were at 
it some time, working on rather remote territory. 
Then a creeping doubt came. Suspicious, I led 
very gently to ground I knew, and about which 
also he was perfectly clear. In five minutes it was 
plain that he had never been there and knew as 
good as nothing about it. I sought the wharf. 



158 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Ungava means the farther or farthest place. 
For two or three years I was at a loss to locate 
Ungava Pond. Several of the coast rivers along 
were said to lead there. "You can go to Ungava 
Pond by that river," was said of each one. In the 
end I became satisfied that coast people had some 
report of Lake Michikamau, the source of North- 
west River, and used it as a basis for their relations. 
That any Eskimo has ever been there is most 
difficult to believe. 

On this coast "pond" and "brook" are names 
for largest inland waters; "lake" and "river" are 
terms for the smaller ones. Rapids are "rattles"; 
the reaches between are "steadies"; falls are 
"overfalls." 

On the way home we were off a day at Tilt 
Cove, with its great copper mine, where Mr. 
Williams, the manager, overwhelmed us with 
good things. Cigars such as we had almost for- 
gotten were opened, and other things, with un- 
wonted sounds as of popping. On the Clyde, to 
Lewisport, were Mr. Berteau and Mr. White, of 
St. John's. One is never very far from home 
connections, for the former proved to be a far 
cousin; his grandmother was a Cabot in our island 
of Jersey. Altogether, save for the flies and the 
immovable canoe, yclept Raft, the world did us 
well that year. 



Chapter VII 
1905 

AUGUST of 1905 found two hard-working 
travelers again inching their way up the 
high portage of the Assiwaban. The place 
is without doubt one of the harder places of Canada 
to deal with when one is under a pack. For myself 
the last pull to the top came near being too much. 
I half gave up, crawled around the slope until I 
found water, then, revived, finished out. It was a 
warm, breathless day. My companion, Lewis 
Quackenbush, of New York, a young, strong man 
of a good deal of southern-slope experience, did 
better than I. We took up only one load a 
day. The canoe, a good birch of fairly portable 
weight, we got off rather easily with, passing it 
from one to the other and each going light between 
turns. In going down the place on the return 
journey, one of us fell while crossing a rock-slide 
and dropped the canoe, but it was not hurt to 
speak of. 

The outfit was all up the 5th of August, and 
we camped a mile on at the second pond. Trout 
of six or eight inches took the fly well; deep little 
fish of electric quickness, very dark on the back 
and very yellow beneath, like those of the New- 
foundland ponds. They may belong to a sub- 
species, which may include also the bright Mistastin 
trout. I regret not saving specimens. 

One expects the fish of such far waters that 
have never known the hook to be wholly without 
caution, but even these small fish, eager enough 

159 



160 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

at first, became noticeably wary of the fly by the 
time a meal or two of them had been caught. 
So it is almost everywhere by daylight, though at 
dusk or even in darkness trout seem to lose all 
reason. They will take ordinary worm bait on 
exceptionally dark nights, from Maine to Labrador. 

Rambling about near a pond a little south of 
our route, we came upon a low set of lodge poles, 
such as the Indians use for their small skin traveling 
tents. A spray of evergreen had been placed where 
the poles joined at the top. This was their date 
record. Any one following could tell by the fading 
of the twigs very nearly when the party had camped 
there. 

These skin traveling tents are shaped like a 
broad collar when laid out flat. They will not 
catch fire, being indeed about the only kind of 
small tent In which one can have an open fire 
without calamity. Moreover, they have the ad- 
vantage of stretching into almost any shape, and 
even size. 

We went on heavy loaded and very slowly, 
making triple portages between the ponds. The 
canoe was rather overweight, even in this my 
third year of preparation for the country. When 
dry It may not have weighed over seventy-five 
pounds, but a birch takes up water with continuous 
use, and with the paddles this one carried heavier 
than it ought to. As to provisions, it is well to 
have plenty, for they can be discarded at any time 
if game proves reliable, but the full amount we had 
did give us hard work on those first wet portages. 

In the spring I had ordered a canvas canoe, to 
be especially light, though deep, from a maker 
whom I will not expose. The outcome was the 
worst-looking boxy affair I ever saw, weighing 




Indian Camp in the Barrens 




A Traveling Tent 



ICE 161 

sixty-eight pounds. Probably half the weight was 
in paint and "filler," the latter virtually paint 
too. Sixty-eight pounds is not so bad, but the 
timbering was very light, and Q. thought the 
whole fabric might dissolve under us. His birch, 
from Lake St. John, on the Saguenay, was as 
good as a birch could be, so we cached my craft 
above Assiwaban Falls and kept along in his. 
It is fair to say that Q. did most of the canoe 
carrying. He was tall, strong, and weighty, and 
could carry in a wind when I could not. My canoe 
would have taken up little or no water, and kept 
its lightness, especially as it would have kept dry 
inside; a birch will never keep wholly dry on a 
shallow, stony route. 

There had been a good deal of ice coming north. 
The usual pack at Harrigan was solid on the 
land the 22d of July, hard, green salt-water ice, 
more or less rafted. Some tourist passengers 
wanted to go on to see Nain, and for two or three 
hours the Virginia rammed the pack with a will. 
She would back up a few lengths, head for the 
weakest place, and fetch up with a heavy boom. 
A wonderful sealer's hull she had, unsparing of 
material, greenheart sheathed and doubly ironed 
about the sloping bow. Like a crowbar she ram- 
med her way, scarcely quivering as she fetched up 
short. No one minded the bow, it could take care 
of itself. Directed at a weak place not too high 
above water it would merely lift a little and stop. 
Sometimes the edge of the pan would sink or split 
and pass to the sides, but the bow stood all and 
everything. The stern, the vulnerable heel, was 
another matter. There, and not at the bow, were 
stationed the sharper eyes of the boat. On each 
side a man watched keenly the clear depths, lest 



162 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the ice that kept swinging into the open space 
astern should foul the screw before it could be 
stopped. Some of the flinty green walls ran down 
twenty-odd feet, perhaps thirty. A moderate 
touch of the screw to one of the harder under 
tongues and we were helpless. It was all in vain, 
we could see Fanny's, but never reached it. The 
experience was a touch of the real Arctic. The 
dank chill of the pack was penetrating. Nearby 
on the ice at one place was a large shark, hauled 
out who knows where in the North by Eskimo. 
Seventy or eighty bergs stood in a long crescent 
beginning near us to the north and sweeping far 
around toward the west, and the black desolation of 
of the high, snow-streaked land against the evening 
sky completed the Arctic aspect. It was the 22d 
of July. 

The enthusiasm of the passengers to reach 
Nain, as a sort of Farthest North possible, was not 
so keen by the time we turned back. They had had 
their taste of the real thing, on a safe scale, and were 
pretty well satisfied. As the novelty wore away, 
the boom and impact and throw of the vessel be- 
came tiresome, if not suggestive of untoward 
happenings. The pack we had approached with 
eagerness had become a forbidding world of ice. 
A friend at home, who once steamed to the edge 
of the polar ice field from Norway, has related 
that some of the party were so overwhelmed at 
the cruel sight as to burst into tears. Shrinking 
to the cabin they remained there until the vessel 
steamed away and the ice was well behind. 

By the time the long twilight came on we had 
had more than enough of the ice, and were ready 
to take to the cabin ourselves. But all was not 
over. The North had yet to make its parting, 



ICE 163 

in a way we little thought. As we were about 
to go below, leaving those who could deal with the 
situation to do so, there fell across the sea from 
some distant horizon around the cape an after- 
light of the sunset, touching with warm color a 
few heaved-up points of the ice field and calling 
into fine rose the whole far-stretching crescent 
of bergs. In the gray waste they had been all 
but indistinguishable before. Now, in subdued 
exquisite flame they came forth over the plain. 
From a chill desolation the scene was transformed 
as few places of earth ever are. The ice world 
was become a vision untold. 

At three next morning we were dropped over- 
side behind the Cape Island, in Windy Tickle, 
and the steamer returned south. As it happened 
to be Sunday we did not care to make a start, and 
piling our things on the shore, we walked across 
the island to Spracklin's, where all were "ready 
for the rush" — of cod. There were no fish 
coming in, of course, though the water was said 
to be "full of them." The ice was piled up in 
the harbor entrance. 

Next morning the ice had loosened, though as 
we pulled out of the Tickle to the north it looked 
as dense as ever outside. Soon two schooners 
came up behind on the south breeze and entered the 
pack near us to seaward. They might as well 
have tried to plough the land, as it looked to me, 
but they never quite came to a stop, as I remember, 
and surprisingly soon had a good offing. By 
night the pack had really begun to string off. 

During the next four days we worked our way 
some seventy-five miles to the Assiwaban. At 
times the floating bits of ice made the rowing 
backward annoying. The larger ice lodged out- 



164 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

side the islands, shutting out all swell, all feel of 
the sea; we were traveling in level salt water lakes. 
The more open bays were well lined with pack ice 
and bits of berg, streaming with water in the sun 
and wearing away rapidly between tides, for in 
the long days the water warmed in the inner shal- 
lows and coming out with the tide undercut the 
grounded masses. At low tide some overhanging 
shelf of several tons' weight would break off and 
fall six or seven feet flat to the water with a report 
like a field gun. All night long this artillery 
would keep up, here and there about the open bays, 
In daylight, as we rowed by, the effect was startling, 
and the splash something to be regarded. Any 
of the higher ice was likely to turn over at any 
time. Once an under-water table began to lift 
as I was passing over it, and I had to pull fast to 
get away. It would be no joke to get hove up 
that way and dropped into a lot of churning frag- 
ments. 

Wonderful, often fantastic, are the shapes of 
the ice. Through one narrow berg fragments had 
been perforated a row of handsome arches, curi- 
ously alike. A mushroom form was common, the 
stem being shaped by the wash of the warm 
waves as the tides came and went. All the nights 
had their strong aurora. We lay upon the smooth 
moss of the beaches and slept under its splendor. 
On those calm nights the cold air over the icy sea of 
the archipelago met the warm air of the inland as 
in a wall. Then would appear a marvelous 
waving band following high over the shore line, 
a great scroll rolling and unrolling from horizon to 
horizon. Folding and unfolding it stretched from 
northwest to southeast. We never felt like turn- 
ing in to sleep in its presence; again and again we 




GrESTs 




Ai. 



(^&i# 






'Iw^'^i^'HE g»u 



Barren Grouxd Lake, Tshinutivish, 1906 (Page 271) 



ASSIWABAN 165 

would uncover our faces for a last look. How far 
it extended in such times of widespread calm 
would be hard to say. Around the entire conti- 
nental north, perhaps, its white wraith shone, 
a map supernal of the sub arctic shores. 

At Un'sekat we stopped. I had not been 
there since Antone and I sailed away that dark 
day two years before. Only Mrs. A. and the 
daughter were there at the time. There was not 
very much to say, we were two white travelers 
and imposed our atmosphere; the trout were 
good. It was still early, and we pushed along a 
bay before camping, while the weather served. 

Up Voisey's bay next morning we had a 
following wind. It was interesting to see how the 
two canoes compared with each other. Mine was 
as smooth as a piano, and when rowed in calm 
water went well. Under sail, too, and our sails 
were exactly alike, she would draw away from the 
birch. But let a little sea come on and her broad 
bilges begin to pat, and the half-mysterious lines 
of the Indian birch told. She was designed. If 
the birch had had the smoothness of my boat she 
would easily have passed ahead at all times. 

There were fish enough up through the river, 
none of more than four pounds. Q. did most of 
the poling, he was better at it than I, and the birch 
did not pole very well; she had a paddling model. 
I would walk the bank along the rapids, mostly 
to lighten the boat. The sand beaches carried 
some tracks. Wolves seemed numerous, though 
we saw none, nor heard them nights. We may 
have seen the tracks of a hundred or two during 
the trip. 

We were both doubtful sleepers, none the less 
so in mosquito country, and during the first of 



166 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the trip found It well to stop early and put up 
good defenses for the night. So it was that when 
we found calm water in the wind lake we camped 
with the worst place ahead of us, although it was 
long before sunset. Q. could hardly believe that 
so small-appearing and calm a water need be 
much regarded. But it is not for nothing that 
this is held to be one of the places where the Great 
Grampus is in charge, for with a norther which 
came on over night we were half a day, wet and 
devilled about by the backwash from, the long 
swing of the rocky north portal, before being safe 
out of the lake. Five times now I have gone 
through the place on perfectly flat water; five times, 
on the other hand, the Grampus has lashed his 
tail; five times the Indians' Underwater People 
have been awake. People of the open know that 
only when these powers of the water places are 
occupied or asleep should one try to travel. A 
good offering to them, at least, is Indispensable. 

Two or three miles above the lake a canoe with 
three Indians shot around the far bend. They 
turned in and we met at the bank. I knew them 
all, Ostinitsu, Pah-kuun-noh, and, now a young 
man, Nah-payo, or Nah-harpao, the "One-who- 
sees-far." Old O.'s name means, inappropriately 
now, "The Young Man," and P.'s the "Man-of- 
the-Sea," or Sailor-man. Before making a fire they 
cautiously placed a circle of wet sand on the moss, 
for the weather was dry, and only white men 
burn their own country. We had a good luncheon; 
they were glad to have our tobacco, tea, and 
sugar, with the other things of our list. Deer, 
they said, were scarce at Tshinutivis, but they had 
enough fish. The winter had been hard. They 
were thin and looked overworked. It was a 



OSTINITSU 167 

friendly meal, and they stood the camera well 
enough afterward; as usual the old man winced 
a little. 

Off they went, with no gun, having only a deer 
spear in the boat and not much fur, making fast 
time with their three paddles. The boat was a 
birch of some power, built by O. himself. "Ehe," 
he had said, "Astulan." "Yes, I build canoes." 
They sat low, hard down on their heels, and flew 
down the current for the great portal. 

There were no recent deer tracks at the forks. 
Above there, sometimes, a fresh track slanted 
down one of the high cut banks, visible in the 
sliding sand from a half mile away. Sometimes 
there were two tracks, a little apart and parallel, 
as caribou best like to go. 

Mosquitoes were much as ofold, the trip through. 
Q., in the assurance of long experience on the 
southern slope of far trips up Peribonka and other 
rivers of the Saguenay basin, had regarded with 
some indifference my display of fly protectives, — 
gloves and veil and kerchiefs and tar grease, and 
my net-fronted helmet for nights. I folded them 
all away and bided the future. Somewhere along 
the river the evil day came. Q. was tall and 
strong and energetic, a figure in the open. When 
the time came his shock of hair stood all ways, 
and he swung his long arms like flails. "You 
told me! You told me how it would be! But 
I never dreamed anything about it!" 

As we entered the unknown country west we 
were a little the worse for wear. Coming from 
the steamer soft and out of training we had fallen 
upon the long pull up the coast, with some head 
wind, and this getting from the steamer to the 
Assiwaban, which could have been done in one 



168 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

easy day from Nain, if our plans to leave the 
steamer there had worked out, had taken the 
first freshness out of us. It was the old story, 
men from town fall away at first under heavy work. 
One depends on the first days of physical fizz and 
enthusiasm to get an offing, but these were now 
used up, and though an easy four or five days along 
the river would have restored the balance, we did not 
feel like taking the time, late as we were. Once on 
the portages of the high inland, the canoe felt heavy, 
and the outfit too. The assurance that went 
with having these things meant a great deal to 
Q.; he preferred to travel with all chances elimi- 
nated, so far as possible, and was willing to carry 
the weight. The shadow of Hubbard's history 
was a little in the air then. 

Wet weather came on at our second camp on 
the highlands. A shower was coming when we 
landed at the head of a pond, and as usual we 
simply lay down with the tent laid over us and 
waited. For more than an hour the water came 
down as it rarely does there. Gradually the 
little brooks from the folds of the tent worked 
inside and found us, and in time, wet enough, we 
put up the tent. It had seemed as if the pour 
would never stop. Once the tent was standing, of 
course the rain let up, and a cold north wind came 
on with finer rain. There was not much wood, 
it was hard to get dried out. In the morning we 
took over a load to the next lake, perhaps a mile 
and a half, largely through bogs now afloat. 
The brown waterproof bags, a provision of 
Q.'s, were saving things then. They are invin- 
cible. Poured full of flour one of them lay out 
two nights and a day in the rain and was none 
the worse. They carried beautifully well, too. 




Off for the Shore 




Bleached Horns, Mistinipi, 1910 



THE BARRENS 169 

Through the day we got an occasional spreading 
stump from the neighborhood, and kept a fire 
until three or four in the afternoon. It is a 
curious thing that we stood propped on our legs 
by that fire practically all that day, torpid, and 
never thought to get something to sit on. We 
merely turned one damp side to the fire and then 
the other, standing. At last we got a meal, and 
slept a long, flyless night. 

Mornings and evenings there came a curious, 
lamb-like bleating from the scrub down at the 
end of the pond; for a time we could not make 
it out. It came from willow ptarmigan. The 
bushes were nearly like a henyard with feathers, 
and we saw a good many birds, large and able to 
fly well now. They were everywhere where there 
was any cover that year; one ought to have picked 
up forty or fifty in two or three hours of kicking 
about the scrub places. Slight cover of some sort 
occurs in a good many places, although most of 
the country along this reach is barren and monoto- 
nous, and peculiarly desolate and unattractive in 
dark weather. 

The difference between the walking in really 
wet weather and dry is very great. No country 
need be better than this is in continued dry 
weather, when even the lower grounds between 
ponds are perfectly passable, though sometimes 
uneven with tussocks and large stones, or somewhat 
quaking when one goes over with a heavy load on; 
the general country is open and but for field-stone 
boulders might do in places for a motor car. 

A few days' rain and the slipperiness and 
puddling tendency of the light felspathic soil 
changes the footing abominably. The swamps 
go afloat, one gyrates from boulder to boulder with 



170 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

heavy wrenching strains from the pack, or has to 
hoist oneself and load from some swashy black 
puddle to a stone a foot and a half above, and 
step down into the mud again, turning and stretch- 
ing and sidestepping in a most exhausting way. 
Better a mile of firm, even ground than a hundred 
feet of this. Nor, again, are some of the quaking 
bogs anything of the easiest to take a load over in a 
wet time. 

This camp of the northeast weather and the 
portage beyond were of the soaky kind. There 
is a Camp Misery somewhere in every one's trip, 
and though there was nothing particularly salient 
on this occasion, or novel to either of us, we were 
just thoroughly uncomfortable for a day or two, 
and the swampy portage was wearing. Somewhere 
in it I found where one of the three Indians had 
sat on a boulder to rest, leaving a pair of deep foot- 
prints when he rose to his feet to go on with his load. 
Their canoe looked to weigh one hundred and 
twenty-five pounds, and they were light men. 
There was no trail, for in swampy places each man 
of a party seeks an untrodden way as being firmer 
than if puddled up by another traveler. The mat 
of the bog becomes weakened by repeated passing 
and may go through. In fact, as to anything 
like a beaten path, there cannot be more than 
four or five miles of it that really helps one on the 
whole Indian route from the coast to the George. 

We lunched at the end of a long, narrow pond 
running near west, and emptying into a Mistastin 
branch. Up to this time the drainage had been 
eastward toward the high portage. While we 
were eating Q. noticed a black bear seven or 
eight hundred yards away on an easy slope. He 
was so black as to be almost luminous against 



A BEAR 171 

the white moss country. By his sudden moves 
and snatches he appeared to be mousing. They 
turn up stones and bits of ground for the mice, and 
are better at the cat's game than one would think 
from their figure and size; they are sometimes very 
funny at it. After awhile the bear came into 
broken ground and in range of a large boulder, 
so that we were able to make an approach, when 
Q. fired two or three shots from his Savage rifle, 
and we found our victim down presently in a 
little hollow. We had been fairly concealed, and 
what with the smokeless powder and slight reports, 
he never knew where we were. 

He was not a large bear, but perhaps as much as 
three hundred pounds in weight, being almost as 
broad as a woodchuck. His weight was mainly a 
matter of fat; it was two inches deep over the back 
and plenty everywhere it could be, inside and out. 
Like almost everything else in the country that 
could eat mice, the bear was full of them. The 
next year, a hard year for the bears, for there 
were no mice, I shot one half as large again in 
frame, but it was not much heavier; there was no 
fat whatever on him. 

The coming in of a stock of good bear meat 
cheered our way. In the warm weather the fat 
fell from perfect sweetness in about a day, but the 
meat itself was extremely good as long as it lasted. 

The pond of our little hunt, narrow and about 
two miles long, we called Bear Pond. A north- 
wester began to blow as we put off, growing to a 
very strong gale, and though it would hardly seem 
possible to become windbound on a narrow pond 
of this size, getting ahead was so slow and hard, 
that we actually stopped and camped in a nearly 
woodless place half way to the end. There was no 



172 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

putting up a tent, if only for want of poles. In the 
two days we were there we used up the firewood 
for a long distance around, though the cooking 
took little, and the camp was nearly shelterless. 
Close up under a little fringe of scrub evergreen, a 
foot and a half high, we had the fire and the cooking 
things ; and behind the only other growth of the kind 
about we slept. So protected, the night showers 
blew over us very well. We were comfortable 
enough, but it is a bleak, windy, exposed country 
along there, and one may have a real norther with 
snow any night. 

The first afternoon we wandered off west a mile 
or two to some trees, looking at the country and 
for game. There was little sign of deer about. 
Upon a good rise to see from was a great boulder, 
some ten feet high, riven by frost or some internal 
stress into fragments with fissures of some size 
between. I climbed up, but while meditating 
on the wide stretch of country and the many lakes, 
a strong, growling sigh came from exactly under 
me inside the rock, and I got down in a hurry. 
It is absurd how those sudden four-footed sounds 
awake old instincts to dodge. It was only an Arctic 
fox. We could see his dingy summer tail through a 
large fissure, but it moved in farther and out of 
sight when touched with a stick. 

The wind blew again next day and we put in 
the time afoot, mainly exploring for the route. 
Some five miles northwest was a commanding hill 
of smooth slopes to which we beat up against the 
gale. There were two visible water routes in that 
direction, but we could find no signs of travel. 
We were very close to some, if we had known it; 
but the route here, in a general way westerly, turns 
sharply south for a mile and a half and is easy to 



EXPLORATION 173 

miss. Beyond the high hill, known after 1906 
as Caribou Hill, was a fine broad lake. Southeast, 
and about the rolling plain generally, were forty 
or fifty lakes and ponds up to four or five miles 
long. Still a third route used by Indians led 
south, then west, if we had known, but it was 
masked from us by a high ridge. The locality 
was confusing, with its hills and many ponds. 
The. views we took from the hill show little, for 
in north winds the water looks nearly black from 
above and photographs badly; at such times the 
longer slopes of the waves are in shadow, while 
with wind from the direction of the sun they are 
lighted. As to finding our route we were little 
better off at night than in the morning. By 
evening the wind went down. We fished a little, 
mainly to find out what there was in the pond, 
but, surprisingly for that country, had not a bite. 
After supper an interesting fish near two feet long 
appeared at the edge of the water, but it had 
moved out too far by the time Q. could get his 
rifle and shoot at it. It looked like a whitefish 
or white sucker. Some sizable pieces of bear fat 
we had pitched out on the water soon began to 
wabble and finally disappeared, but we did not 
see just how. They may have sunk. 

As I was knocking about the place in the morn- 
ing, Q. still asleep, the three Indians we had met 
in the river valley came almost alongside before 
I saw them. We turned over our provisions to 
them and they made a meal, eating much bear 
but avoiding the fat. They were quite in distress. 
The Pelican had not come, the store was almost 
bare, and they had been unable to get much; no 
ammunition, tobacco, nor much of anything; 
could we let them have some powder and shot and 



174 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

tobacco? Of course we stripped ourselves of what 
we could possibly spare. Then we talked about 
the route and finally arranged with them to help 
us as far as Mistinipi Lake, if we would not take 
too much luggage. I took a large waterproof 
bag and began to put things into it, the heavier 
things. As it filled up they looked uneasy, and 
as I remember demurred audibly. Their relief 
when I finally jammed the heavy bag under the 
scrub to be left behind was easy to see. Off we 
went, they having little of their own to carry, and 
taking some of our things, we doing what we could. 
It was a warm day of gathering dulness, with flies. 
The Indians were naturally faster than we were, 
with their long canoe and three paddles. "Mauats 
tshilipi!" I exhorted old O. "Do not hurry!" 
"Mauats!" he answered, and kept his word. On 
Long Lake we gradually accumulated a cloud of 
mosquitoes. About the other canoe, fifty feet 
ahead, they appeared as a bluish nimbus, five or 
six feet across. I had never seen mosquitoes 
visible at a distance in that way. Yet I thought 
the Indians got only about half the actual bites 
we did, ordinarily. Where a mosquito would 
pitch upon one of our hands without hesitation, 
wasplike and end on, it would pause and hover a 
little over the skin of an Indian and light quietly. 
The canoes went abreast for a time, and looking 
across I noticed that old O. had done up his head 
in a piece of black netting I had given him; he 
seemed glad to have it. Likewise Indians are ready 
to accept tar grease after seeing white men use 
it. They are keen, indeed, to see the advantage 
of almost any new thing and to make the most of it. 
Two or three times while we were with them 
one of them would go ashore, pull out some dried 



WITH THE INDIANS 175 

meat from under a rock, and carry it back to the 
canoe. They had provided for their return trip 
in this way. There was a rifle in their boat now, 
which had probably been cached somewhere near 
where we met them first, or perhaps it had been 
at the post for repairs. They do not seem to have 
faculty about metal work; William Edmunds, with 
the Eskimo superiority in such matters, used to fix 
up their guns for them. 

Of course the main work came on the land 
portages. Q. carried the canoe, I a stout pack on 
a headstrap. The Indians carried on a line over 
the head and another over the front of the shoul- 
ders, over which was thrown a blanket to take the 
cut of this line. On the head they placed a bunch 
of evergreen twigs to take away the cut there of the 
string. They told me, rightly, that a headstrap 
alone, as I had it, was not the thing, but I did not 
venture a change that trip. Their carrying lines 
were mostly of caribou leather, braided round, a 
little larger than heavy cod line, say three six- 
teenths of an inch or more in diameter. In 
resting we sat down in file on the ground, each man 
ahead of a boulder, which took the weight of his 
pack. All one could see looking ahead was a line 
of large bundles on boulders, with no person in 
sight. Then all the packs would rise up and move 
on in procession, each with a thin pair of legs 
stepping along under it. 

Old O. and I took things much alike. If there 
was an extra turn to make over the portage one of 
the younger men did it. Q., strong as he was, 
would nevertheless have enough of the job by the 
time our canoe was over and was content to drop 
on the moss and rest. Young Na'pao, fifty pounds 
lighter, would trot over with their large canoe, 



176 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

perhaps for his second trip over the portage, and, 
untouched, would stand at the edge of the water 
and throw stones. The Indians could have circled 
around us as we went. 

Late in the day I felt pretty well steadied 
down, and noticed that O. seemed to have about 
the same gait. "Aieskushin-ah?" I asked, 
"Are you tired?" "Ehe,""Yes," he said, simply. 
I was a little surprised, for it is not easy to get In- 
dians, as I know them, to own up to being tired. 
They are "hungry," generally, that is all. The differ- 
ence is not so much, for as an old Matterhorn man 
once said, "If you see a man giving out, feed him!" 

We passed through seven or eight ponds that 
day, camping late on a small lake where were a 
few trees. The route from Long Lake had been 
shut in among close hills and the ponds and streams 
between were small. Ledges were rare, the hills 
being ground smooth by ice-cap action and then 
more or less carpeted by the thin moss. Where 
rock showed it was often marked by glacial 
scratches, and was harder than the felspathic or 
eruptive base of the more open country toward 
the coast. 

At the little lake where we finally stopped O. 
walked up with his axe to the largest of a few 
scattered trees about. It had live branches sloping 
downward to the ground. On the side away from 
a possible north storm he trimmed off enough low 
branches to be able to get in alongside to the 
trunk, and then thatched in overhead the palm- 
like boughs he had cut off, placing them at a steep 
angle. Here, close to the trunk, the three In- 
dians slept, using their little leather tent, a flat 
affair shaped like an Eton collar six or seven feet 
wide, for an additional blanket. Though it show- 



CARIBOU 177 

ered in the night they were perfectly well sheltered. 
We, likewise, used our tent as a blanket, and came 
off fairly well. 

We were stirring in the gray of the morning. 
Pakuunnoh washed his hands in the lake without 
soap and got breakfast. Their hands seem never 
grimy or to need care. They kept the dishes 
clean, the few that there were. At luncheon the 
day before I had handed our tin pail to Pakuunnoh 
to make tea. He took off the cover and turned 
away to get water, but I noticed, though he was 
looking off absently, that he furtively touched his 
finger tips to the inside of the pail. They stuck 
a trifle, we had boiled fat bear in it and not done 
our washing too well. Pakuunnoh grunted sig- 
nificantly, went silently to the water and scrubbed 
the pail out well. 

As we were putting out from shore, about 
five, Q.'s hunter eyes caught a caribou stag walking 
up a distant sky line. He and Napao went after 
it and surprisingly soon brought back the meat. 
The stag appeared to have sought the top of a 
ridge to get its ruminating doze away from flies. 
The horns were of course in velvet at that time. 
Napao had tried Q.'s soul while cutting up the 
deer by slashing into the flinty bones with his 
fine, hard-tempered knife and taking out liberal 
nicks. The Indian knives and axes are soft 
enough to sharpen with a file and do not chip. 

At the end of the lake we had to leave some 
of the meat for our return. I did not know just 
what to do with it and asked the Indians to cache 
it for us. P. walked up to a little thick-topped 
evergreen and shoved it in among the branches; 
away from the ground on account of the smaller 
animals, out of sight, on the other hand, from 



178 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the ravens and jays. "Shetshimao!" I objected, 
*'The flies!" "Mauats shetshimao," *'No flies," 
P. returned. When we came back four or five 
days later, there were some small flyblows on it, 
but no harm done. But we had had a very cold 
storm meanwhile, and if it had been warmer there 
would have been trouble, I should say. Still, 
without the storm we should have been back 
much sooner, and this the Indians may have 
reckoned on. 

The height of land came at the head of a fine 
lake four or five miles long, which we called Hawk 
Lake, from the falcons' nests on some moderate 
cliffs near the narrows. The falcons bred on 
almost all cliffs that year, from the coast in. The 
actual height of land was a broad, low saddle with 
a trifling valley or draw through it, and a tiny 
pond or two. The portage, over smooth, velvety 
ground, was only thirty or forty feet above the 
lakes on either side and was little more than a 
half mile long. Now we were on George River 
water, a handsome, deep-looking lake with some 
high cliff shores on the south, and some two miles 
in length. A rugged portage of two miles, partly 
on a bad path, brought us to the long eastern tail 
of Mistinipi. Here, under the sheltering height of 
land hills to the northeast, quite a belt of trees 
stretched along the right shore. The savage 
Baffin's Bay influences were visibly less on this 
side the watershed. The trees were often straight, 
in contrast to the desperate gnarled shapes of the 
Atlantic side. But it was only special sheltered 
places that showed normal trees ; almost everywhere 
the winter winds from northwest had had a blasting 
touch, for the trend of the lake basin is that way. 
On the south for some miles were wonderful 



MISTINIPI 179 

smooth gravel levels, with moss-terraced moraines, 
and pairs of caribou paths following along the 
slopes and in places slanting to the water. 

It was very warm that afternoon, close and 
overcast. Heavy, straight-down showers came 
now and then, during which we got under rocks 
or spruces or the boats, as best we might. A mile 
down Mistinipi is a close narrows, then a fairly 
wide water, and beyond the lake is two miles 
wide or more. Then comes the main narrows, 
where, as another heavy pour came on, we all ran 
for a cove on the south side. When the rain let 
up we had a fire and a meal. This last part of the 
day continued warm and overshadowed, the air 
hanging with moisture. Something was brewing. 
The Indians were uneasy to be off. To the last 
Q. and I argued about going with them. Os- 
tinitsu urged us to come along to their camp, 
saying that it was "mauats katak,*" not very far. 
We had enough food to get there, but not to come 
back on. I had no doubt whatever that the 
Indians would see us provided, but when I tried 
to explain that we wanted to be sure of supplies 
to come back with they seemed confused. I take 
it they could not imagine our asking such a ques- 
tion. It is certain that as invited guests they 
would have seen us provided, even if they ran 
short themselves in doing it. If we got delayed 
coming back it would not hurt us to miss a meal 
anyway. But after all we gave up going. In the 
end I told Ostinitsu that we had to catch a steamer, 
and so he told Mrs. Hubbard's party two or three 
days later on George River. 

They had accepted the leg bones of the cari- 
bou, but left the meat for us. I doubt their 

*M6wats kah-tark 



180 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

caring much for the fresh meat as compared with 
the dry, but in any event they never neglect the 
marrowbones. In the mix of separating our 
things they left the bones after all, so we ran 
across a little neck and called to them. They 
took the bones with faces averted, Naskapi 
fashion, and drove away for the wide lake with- 
out a word. It was a poor parting from people 
who had been companionable and kind, no less 
helpful and interesting. Q. and I went back 
to our fire in silence, wet and tired, and not 
happy. 

Ostinitsu had said that it would not rain much 
more, when I was discussing the difficulties of our 
going on, but he was never more mistaken, though 
to tell the truth I think he shaped his words to his 
wishes for once. However this may have been, 
a three days' norther set in, blowing up the narrows 
and across our slightly timbered point until our 
tent nearly flapped away. Occasionally the hills 
would whiten with snow, not to stay long, and 
again the fine rain would drive with the gusts. 
The backward eddying of the wind carried sparks 
against the hot front of the tent whenever our 
fire was near enough to be in any way worth 
having, and the burnt holes gradually increased 
our ventilation. The tent was Egyptian cotton, 
"balloon silk," which is strong, light, tight, and 
unabsorbent, but when hot catches fire like tinder. 
From a mere spark the burning spreads fast, with 
white smoke. It was a mean time, adding for me 
a memorable one to the cold, wretched northers 
and northeasters of a camping lifetime. One 
cooks little, eats cold, everything gets slinky, and 
the wet chill of the air gets into one's bones and 
disposition. If they lasted long enough one would 



w 



m 



m 



^ 



o 



WINDBOUND 181 

give up. No wonder that among all the Indians 
Death comes from the northeast. 

For a time on the second forenoon the rain was 
only mist, though the wind held strong and cold. 
We went to a hill some way southwest and looked 
down into a pretty pond, with caribou roads on a 
fine moss slope beyond. This is the heart of the 
northeastern range of the deer, in all its subarctic 
perfection. Even in the thick, dark weather 
the hills and lakes held our eyes. We were 
the first there of our race. The region Is perhaps 
the fair spot of all the Labrador peninsula. If it 
had been clear we should have gone farther and 
seen the actual escarpments of George River, at 
perhaps twenty^-five miles distance as the raven 
flies. 

From the narrows the lake opens broad to the 
west, and from the hills we were on one can see well 
toward the head of the main lake, say a dozen 
miles. There were ptarmigan in some broken 
ground near camp, gathered among some shel- 
tering spruces. A strong rufous tint prevails 
In the young birds at this time, especially toward 
the head. 

The third day the wind eased, and we danced 
across the lively narrows uneasily, stopping, 
heading up Into the gusts, making a side move 
when w^e could; all with enough misgivings, for 
at any time a final blast from the wide lake might 
concentrate in the narrows to our grief. Once 
under the northern lee our way eastward was 
sheltered; then the sky brightened and by after- 
noon we were on smaller waters. At Hawk Lake 
the wind and a slight rain blew straight on shore 
from north; we had no choice but to stop. For an 
hour we wandered about the smooth glaciated 



182 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

valleys to find some sheltered spot, enough of a lee 
for two men to get behind. Not a bush, not a rock 
was available. All uprising surfaces, great and 
small, were ground smooth and rounded, and the 
wind swept every one, no matter what way it 
faced. Giving up, we returned to the lake. A 
little crest of sand two feet high had been pushed 
up by ice, a slight barricado, vertical on the land 
side. Behind this we made a fire and cooked. 
When we sat up straight the wind and rain cut our 
ears, but half lying we were well sheltered. After 
supper we raked away the fire and made our bed 
where it had been, the only spot not reached by 
the wind. But the little rampart served, we kept 
close under its straight side, held from caving 
by a lacing of moss, and the rain blew on over us. 

The night over, the weather turned warmer. 
We had forgotten the existence of flies, but all 
in an hour of sun they rose from the moss, active, 
numerous, and apparently keener of appetite from 
the cold spell. It is said that they are properly 
vegetarians, but none of these seemed to waste 
its time looking for anything but ourselves. As 
compared with the people of the country, however, 
they may well have regarded us as green things. 

The lengthening portages toward the Assi- 
waban, wet as they were, taxed us a good deal; 
never have I drawn the reserve lower. The wind 
lake was calm, and without discussion we held on 
half the night to get it behind us; in a day, then, 
we were on the sea. Now came rowing. How 
Q. hated it! and longed for water where his great 
paddle would serve. Voisey was away, codfishing 
at House Harbor, and we pulled along. Un'sekat 
Island showed no signs of life and we held on by; 
seemingly all was adverse. But on turning south 



HOUSE HARBOR 183 

from the Little Rattle who should meet us but 
Johnny Edmunds, in Voisey's long boat. We took 
possession, like buccaneers, turned him about, put 
the canoes aboard, and kept on for Fanny's. It 
was a forlorn hope, as steamer dates were, but 
there is always a chance as voyages go with the 
mailboat. But our keelless boat refused to beat, 
the broadside canoes took the wind and kept her 
falling off too much. So wc turned in for House 
Harbor, ten miles east, a lucky stroke as it came 
out. It was dark when we got there, where we 
found John V. and his family in the little house 
which gives the place its name. Before we 
were up next morning there was a shout and we got 
out in time to see, with sinking feelings, the steamer 
going on up the run for Nain. Things looked 
doubtful; it was a dark, northeast day, thick, and 
the boat might come back far outside or run by us 
in the varying fog. We borrowed a flag from a 
schooner, put it up, and as afternoon came on 
watched the north for smoke. As luck would 
have it, she came back only two miles out and we 
saw her black cloud carried ahead by the wind 
some way before she was opposite. Our luggage 
was already aboard the trap boat. Leaving the 
canoes to Voisey, we put out, and the long trap's 
wonderful heels in a reach took us over in time. 
It was a narrow squeak then, for Captain Parsons, 
whom I could see clearly on the bridge, thought we 
were only fishermen to ask how were the fish 
"down along." The mate had seen our flag, but 
had not reported it. We saw that the steamer was 
going by without stopping. In great tension I 
jumped upon a thwart, bright in yellow oilskins, 
and motioned savagely to the bridge of the steamer 
to shut down steam. It was no fisherman's 



184 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

gesture, and something came to Parsons; I saw 
him reach out and pull the lever. We were pretty 
near and broad oif. They swung around into the 
wind in a long circle and we pulled over to them. 
Getting aboard in the uneasy water took quick 
work. About the first person I ran into was the 
Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of State. Some one 
had asked him below if he was going up to see Mr. 
Cabot get on, to which he returned with casual 
interest, "Which is it, John or Sebastian.?" He 
and his two sons, with Colonel Sanger, were making 
the trip of the coast. 

We were pretty well reduced by our trip, not 
having taken time enough anywhere to freshen 
up, and the extra heavy loads and wet country, 
with indifferent nights, had taken our spring well 
away; aboard the steamer it was agreed we looked 
like picked chickens. 

We had a good time to St. John's, gaining our 
pound a day on the boat, in accordance with 
custom, and were in good trim by the time we 
were there. 




AsSIWAHAN kl\ KK. fKOM UhSI Ob lilt, II |\)KTA<. 




A MosQLiTO Day. Dr. Howe i.\ IVIU 



Chapter VIII 
1906 

THE season of 1906 was one of a good deal 
of knocking about for me both on the 
coast and inland. I went north alone, 
for a reason. It was partly that only an Indian 
would have served the purposes I had in mind, and, 
as usual, I was not sufficiently sure beforehand of 
being able to go at all to warrant engaging one ahead 
from one of the Gulf reserves. For the rest, a 
white companion, however pleasant and helpful 
it might be to have one, would be in some respects 
a disadvantage. I wanted to see something of the 
intimate life of the Indians, and it is hard to find 
white men who care for that sort of thing. Mainly, 
however, I had come to know that one can never 
really "sit in" with primitive people when white 
companions are along. Alone, one is easily taken 
into the group, there is always room for one new 
person, and the current of the life moves on. A 
white party, on the other hand, imposes its own 
atmosphere, and the visit comes to little more than 
a formal meeting between people of alien races. 
Therefore, taking chances though it was, for 
a person alone is easily balked, I went north alone. 
There was not much to lose on the geographical 
side; during the three years preceding, the country 
along the height of land and the George had been 
pretty well developed, and ofltered little that would 
be new, and the adjacent districts would be not 
much different, certainly no better. The people now 
offered more than the country. 

185 



186 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Some help would be necessary in any case, but 
I thought things would work out. My main 
reliance was the Indians themselves; one year and 
another they had urged me to come and go in 
^ with them. There was only the chance of their 
coming out too late in the season, and I thought 
I could count on my friends of the shore for at 
least enough help for a good start inland, when I 
could work along the familiar route alone. Sooner 
or later Indians would come along. 

Naturally enough the working out of my plans 
proved rather a head-wind matter, just as when I was 
north alone in 1903, though the present venture 
came out well enough in the end. I had out of 
it no new exploration, a good deal of knocking 
about among old landmarks, some disappoint- 
ments, some not very commonplace experiences; all 
in all it ended pretty well. 

The voyage north was the usual thing that 
year. The usual shining bergs were grounded 
along the coast, the usual greater ones working 
along outside and in ad libitum. Fog, as usual, 
came and went. Schooners had increased in 
numbers; they were along everywhere in bunches 
and single. The ice-pack at Cape Harrigan was 
only a remnant, and we made through it to Fanny's 
Harbor at about the usual first-steamer date 
without having to stop. It was the 21st of July. 

On board from Battle Harbor north were Dr. 
Townsend and Glover Allen, of Boston, studying 
the birds of the coast. During their run of the 
coast was gathered the material for Dr. Townsend's 
"Along the Labrador Coast." They named many of 
the sea birds I had known but not identified, the 
imposing glaucous gull, or burgomaster, among 
others. A grampus which leaped repeatedly off 



SPRACKLIN'S 187 

Fanny's they named the white-headed whale. 
It cleared the water finely, as lightly as a minnow. 

I wanted to get to Davis Inlet to get news of the 
Indians and to shape my course, and Captain 
Parsons, as of old, had offered to put me ashore at 
Newfoundland Harbor, some six miles across land 
from the Hudson's Bay Company post; but on 
going ashore at Fanny's to see the old place and 
people, I found that Guy, the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany agent, was there for mail with his sailboat, 
and fell quickly upon the opportunity to go over 
with him. 

There must be something about the gray old 
Cape island, out to the sea, or perhaps the sugges- 
tive proximity of the Devil's Thumb out still 
farther, which upsets people's balance at Fanny's 
Harbor, and stimulates their imagination to the 
fathering of sea tales. Here was born Spracklin's 
story of my canoe voyage from Davis Inlet in the 
wild night storm, and now came another, based 
on my leaving the ship with a canoe. Not even that 
I was in the canoe, for I only pulled it along be- 
hind the ship's boat by a string and laid it up on 
the rocks. But imagination found something to 
lay hold of, for when I reached my own club 
in the fall I found that I had been seen leaving the 
steamer alone in a canoe forty miles from land ! 

Fish were again scarce with the Spracklins. 
Some of the old crew were there, Tom Poole among 
the rest, and the place was still Fanny's Harbor, 
but Ellen had fallen in matrimony, and the light 
of the place was dimmed accordingly. 

Guy and I had a meal, gossiped at some length 
with the Spracklins, and were off for the post in a 
failing wind. Before it died, however, we were 
well past the heights of the cape, inside the Thumb, 



188 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and on behind the sheltering islands. At ten or 
eleven we were calmed at the foot of Davis Inlet 
run, with a tide coming out. There was a current 
notion of tying up and sleeping in the boat, among 
the mosquitoes, but I urged another form of punish- 
ment, which culminated in a back-breaking pull 
over the bar and to the post by midnight. 

In this year, 1906, I at least had a good outfit. 
Whatever I tried to do that failed to turn out was 
not from shortcomings of this or that in my equip- 
ment. The canoe was laid out particularly for the 
ponds and windy portages of the barrens. It was 
fifteen feet long by about thirty-three inches wide 
and fifteen deep, and moderately flat. The ends, 
not to catch too much wind, were rather low. If 
these had been a little more run out she would have 
been faster and better about getting ahead in a 
short sea, but for this she took less side wind when 
being carried, a matter worth considering. A light 
person carrying a canoe has about as hard a time 
with wind as he would on the water, no matter 
how strong he is. This canoe was built by Robert- 
son, at Riverside, and was the one which. In 1910, 
weighing only fifty-six pounds herself, carried about 
nine hundred pounds through the twenty lakes 
from George River to the Assiwaban, and this in 
her third season of service. 

The gun was a double one, six pounds, twenty 
bore left and 38.55 right, giving sixteen hundred 
feet velocity. It was most convenient for picking 
up a living, besides taking apart easily and going 
readily into a pack bag out of the way and out 
of the rain. Moreover, It is worth something to 
be able to see through a gun from the breech, which 
one cannot do with many repeaters. What is 
more, a double gun is almost sure to be in order, one 



OUTFIT 189 

side of it or the other, being in this as good as two 
guns, while repeaters generally balk sooner or later. 

For the first time I had a round tent, of "bal- 
loon silk," weighing four pounds or so; a good 
shape to stand wind, and requiring only one pole. 

A four by five inch folding camera, with a beau- 
tiful split Zeiss lens, was partly spoilt by an over- 
strong shutter, expensive at that, which took to 
going off hard and putting the light camera into con- 
vulsions when it did, though in ordinary snaps the 
lens was able to show something of its quality. I 
had a luxurious white Hudson's Bay Company 
blanket, a bit heavy, but taking little care. The 
best thing of all was an F. S. H. matchbox, of which 
more anon. Fire, when really needed, is all the 
world to one. Altogether the outfit was about 
as good as ever was, and not much to be bettered 
unless by bow-facing oars for salt-water work. 



As already told, my objective was Indians. 
I had come back from the North the year before 
a good deal lighted with the pleasant association 
Quackenbush and I had had with the little party 
of them who had taken us over the height of land 
to Mistinipi and asked us to visit them. They were 
a people in the primitive hunter stage. Nowhere 
else, perhaps, was the like of these Indians to be 
found, a little group of a race high in personality, 
yet living substantially in the pre-Columbian age 
of the continent. If they had guns and kettles 
and knives, if they sold fur and bought new 
conveniences, these changed little the essential 
life. They knew no language but their own; they 
had plural wives; they lived wholly on meat and 
fish; they used no salt. The clothing and lodges 



190 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

were mainly of skins. They lived under their own 
law, in their old faith unchanged. 

They would be late coming out, it appeared, 
and after some casting about I turned to a part 
Indian known as Old Edward and his family of 
grown sons to get me inland. Whether, coming 
on the coast alone after what experience I had 
had, I deserved to find help at all may be doubted. 
Something hangs over the shore people in the 
matter of going inland, and this I had known. Old 
E.'s people were another sort, were bred to the In- 
dian life and promised well, but there is still a tale 
to be told, as will appear later. Old E.'s father, 
a Scotch Cree, had drifted "across land," to this 
coast from Hudson's Bay, and married an Eskimo 
woman. But although E. was thus half Eskimo 
and quarter white he was brought up an Indian and 
had lived for many years about the Michikamau 
height of land where he was born. His sons were 
something more than half Indian. E. himself had 
his share of the indirectness common in light and 
dark race mixtures, though intelligent and of some 
personality. He was sixty-four years old and 
pretty well done with the trail himself. The whole 
family, nearly, were at Opetik above William 
Edmunds's. Two or three of the sons were mar- 
ried; the whole group must have counted twenty 
persons. 

Race mixture, of course, gives various results, 
and in the Northeast there are few examples of the 
Indian-Eskimo strain. The only other one I have 
heard of was at Chimo, and the result of the com- 
bination was not for the best. The man in that 
case, however, was weak in constitution. But 
if the E. family are to be taken as a type it is to 
be hoped that either the two races will continue 



TO OPETIK 191 

on two sides of the fence, as at present, or go away 
somewhere until the new combination has had 
a few generations in which to get its bearings. As 
E. remarked, dubiously, when the matter of a trip 
came up, "They are pretty high strung for you." 
They were, as was shown by a handsome black eye 
E. had when I came along later. It appeared that 
one of the boys had been holding forth upon a plan 
of his for looting Davis Inlet post; the father 
remonstrated and said he ought not to talk that 
way, whereupon the young dutiful pitched in 
and left his mark. From the St. Lawrence to 
Chimo there is trouble wherever the older boys 
turn up, but this I did not know until too late. 

It seemed that William Edmunds's was the 
place to go to, and George Lane and I worked our 
way up there in his boat, sailing, rowing, and 
sculling as shore trips generally go, and worrying 
for some time with wind tails from all ways in 
the usual place near Jim Lane's. We found 
Jim dismantling his house to move to Lane's Bay 
and take up his father's place there, where I 
found him later in the summer. The place had 
fallen to him as the oldest son. His father and 
mother, with a boy, had perished in a storm in the 
early spring. The snow leveled them over at the 
time, and it was only just as I came upon the 
coast that they were found; indeed it was George 
and I who carried this serious news to Jim. 

At William's I was tied up two or three days 
by various kinds of weather, and my diary shows 
the drift of things: 

"Lane went off this morning. Raining in 
showers, and delayed going up to Edward's, he is 
five miles above. A poor night, on the floor — 
mosquitoes, cats, dogs, the baby, and drip from 



192 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

rain over the floor, in conspiracy. Fishing not 
good, and W. thinks he might like to go inland 
with me; should prefer one of the E.'s if possible 
to get one. William reports that the older Nas- 
kapi are going to Chimo, on Ungava Bay, that 
they go there to trade because they do not like 
the way of the post here. The E.'s get along well 
here, but do not like my old friend Cotter, now 
at Chimo; he knocked old E. down once for some 
cause, and Indians do not forget such things. It 
seems the Naskapi have thought I might be going 
to set up a trading post inland, and it rather ap- 
pears I should have their trade. Some of the 
younger men are coming out here, but probably 
not before August 12th or so, so as to give the 
Pelican time to get in. This is too much time to 
lose, it is only July 24th now; I cannot see how to 
lay out my time. 

"Clear to-night with northwest wind. The 
sea trout are holding out, also the fresh water 
trout that now and then come with them; these 
are known as 'hard head' trout here. Whitefish 
are coming in too, of about two pounds; are found 
in all the neighboring lakes. They are not quite 
up to the southern-slope ones, but sometimes they 
get large ones, the 'master fish,' which are better. 

"W. says there is usually five or six feet of 
snow in the woods here in winter. He regards fall 
caribou skins as the best for snowshoes. A pair 
he had tightened when wet until they destroyed 
the bows. 

"July 25. Northwest gale. Not worth while 
to fight my way around the point to E.'s. No 
salmon. By nine W. came in with fifteen or twenty 
trout of three pounds. While the fish are being 
cleaned the dogs sit in a row at a little distance, 



MiSTINIPI 




The White Moss Hills, Near Mistinipi 



OPETIK 193 

lined up like sprinters ready for the word, until all 
the fish are done and W. speaks, when they rush 
in and gulp the heads and other leavings. 

"To-day I was alarmed for the two year old 
boy, who was actively kicking an old dog as he lay 
in the sun. The dog stood it awhile, then carefully 
put out a big paw and pushed the boy gently 
away without upsetting him. The dogs do not 
touch the low-hung whitefish drying outside the 
house, Mrs. E. said; the young ones may, but not 
the others, even if the family are away all day. 

"W. says there are a good many wolves about 
in winter; what they get are mostly shot, some 
trapped. They are never dangerous, are 'slink- 
ers.' Near Nain a few years ago they were passing 
for three days in swarms, 'like the deer.' They 
are larger in every way than his dogs, say one 
hundred pounds or more. He has seen one es- 
pecially large track; his own foot just filled it. 
There are no fisher about, that he knows of. 

"A great bear track (barren ground bear?) 
had been seen within a year between here and 
Nain, and more than once. Was ugly, knocked 
a tent down. I asked W. to save the skin com- 
plete if such a bear was killed. This bear story is 
to be taken with caution; any large bear track 
would be stimulating to the Eskimo imagination. 
W. shot at a seal just now — a very high miss. 

"26th. W. and I started for E.'s on the tide, 
at 8.30. Stiff northwest wind. W., who started 
off a novice and sitting obstinately high, though 
the water was rough, was glad to get down on his 
knees after a little, as low as he could." 

Old E. had his camp on the north side of the 
river (the Notaquanon), with three sons and their 
families not far away. He had heard of me, we 



194 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

settled down comfortably, and he held forth: 
He thought one or two of the boys would like 
to go with me, — but they ought to have good pay. 
I was a wealthy man, and it would not matter to 
me how much I paid. I ought to pay whatever 
they asked. Was I really going into fur trading? 
The Naskapi had almost convinced themselves 
that I was looking up a place for a trading post. 
It would be better for me to set up on his river, the 
Notaquanon ("Place where you hunt porcupines"), 
rather than on theirs. Was I quite sure that I was 
not connected with the French company.? I must 
be. How could a wealthy person like me, who 
could stay at home and live as he liked, come up 
into the flies and hard country unless he had some- 
thing to make by it? No matter what I said as to 
this, the old man's incredulous smile never quite 
disappeared. In truth, with the passing of his 
best years he felt the burden of his irresponsible 
family very seriously; it was no wonder that he 
could not take my vacation point of view. The 
Naskapi, he could tell me, were hardly the best 
sort of people. They were friends to your face, 
but not behind your back. They wanted the 
southern Indians to come and hunt with them, 
but they (E. considering himself one of them) 
did not care to. He needed a good canoe very 
much (after looking at mine). The company had 
not treated him well. They ought to bring a 
priest to the coast; it was a very bad thing that 
they would not. 

Talk of the coast and people followed, and it 
appeared that few of the people were just as they 
should be. As to the southern Indians, who 
hunted beyond the river toward the George, they 
were an ungrateful lot. He, E., had killed a great 



OLD EDWARD 195 

deal of meat and given it to them without asking 
anything, but they had no appreciation. 

Yet the old fellow was pleasant to talk with. 
How he had kept his English so perfectly good is 
hard to see, for none of his family use it in a way 
worth mentioning. He had waded across the 
river and shot a fine black bear that day; we had 
a good meal of it. They had killed five among 
them lately, boys and all. Only the day before 
two of the smaller boys had come upon a polar 
bear swimming in the river, but did not dare 
to shoot it at. Indians in general are afraid of 
these bears. On the other hand, Eskimo, who are 
fearless with the white bear on almost any terms, 
are quite timid about the inoflFensive black bear; 
in Eskimo eyes the shadow of the inland is upon all 
its creatures. 

Trout and salmon nets were set in an eddy below 
the camp. A fine fifteen-pound fish came in 
while we were there and some large trout, up to 
seven pounds. They were living well, indeed, 
though without caribou. E. thought these were 
as numerous as ever inland, although they had 
not appeared for two years on his hunting grounds. 
Talk went on starvation. E. had eaten 
wolverene and wolf, but would starve rather than 
eat mice. Hunger was hard to bear at first, then 
you got used to it. Eight days was the longest time 
he had starved; he had one partridge during the 
time. One could not stand it as well the second 
time. He and his daughter Agnes had come very 
low at some time lately; had fallen many times in 
getting to their cache. 

He had been in the Hudson's Bay Company 
service before the posts were abandoned on the 
height of land, for eleven years voyaging the Ham- 



196 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ikon River. The trip to Michikamau took thirty- 
five days. He saw Cary and Cole after their 
walk from the Grand Falls after their canoe was 
burned, and had great respect for their feat of 
getting out whole. 

His route inland follows the Notaquanon River 
about eighty miles, I should say, though he 
mentions it as one hundred and fifty; then a string 
of lakes takes them beyond the height of land. 

William and I went back to his place toward 
evening, taking a boy, Matthew E., along to help 
me back next day. "Young Edward," a son of 
old E., also turned up at W.'s, and I talked with 
him about the routes. He preferred the Assiwaban 
route, as being easier, and said the boy would go too. 
This put me in a good way, and I finally arranged 
the pay matter on a fair basis. 

"27th. At E.'s camp. All is arranged and I 
think we will get off in the morning. It is good 
primitive life here. It is good to be away from the 
dog-ridden shore. At the house last night it was 
close and hot, yet I had to cover up from the mos- 
quitoes. Dogs howled, something smelt, and the 
cat took its night run-around. From a long jump 
it landed all fours on my stomach. 

"To-day the women here at Edward's sewed a 
cunningly arranged Indian flap to the door of my 
round tent, set it up nicely, put in a bed of fresh 
boughs, and started a little fire of fragrant curlew- 
berry vines outside that sent a curl of smoke over 
to the flap, into the door, and around inside until 
the flies were all out. Their woman's touch is 
magic in these things, no less as to the things 
they cook." 

By morning the family courage had fallen off. 
They feared to let the boys go; there was much 



OFF^FOR THE INLAND 197 

talk and many excuses. Matthew had no moc- 
casins, the pay was not enough. The trip came 
near being called off. We started at last. Mat- 
thew's mother looked very doubtful, and young E.'s 
wife held back from shaking hands with me at 
parting, but after this expression of feeling re- 
lented finally. "Don't starve them," said old E. 

It was the 29th. Some of the younger boys 
helped us over a neck to the familiar old portage 
route where George and I went back and forth with 
so many loads in 1903. This time we knocked 
along easily. The boys preferred not to have me 
work, but I held to a fair pack. Rather soon 
young E. asked me if I had any whiskey. In the 
last pond, Muku-wakau-mestuk ("Only crooked 
trees"), there were a few sheldrakes. We camped 
at a little brook, the second camping place of George 
and myself. The path was not hard to trace now, 
for since 1903 few caribou had come through the 
valley to confuse the trail. There were scattering 
tracks, and one small bear track, but little visible 
life. Three Canada jays chortled about a pond 
and some ptarmigan were laughing along the brook 
at dark. The main stream we came up is called 
by the Indians Barren Ground River, as is the great 
George River beyond the height of land. At night 
came more mosquitoes, going far toward eating 
up the boys, who had only one piece of netting 
between them and could not keep it snug. They 
were sleepless and uneasy. I was better off, having 
a whole piece of netting to myself, but the closed 
tent was airless. I had put on some tar grease 
in the afternoon, but thought that even without 
it the enemy really liked the others best, though 
I was marked well under my shirt by black flies 
during the day. After midnight, alarmed lest 



198 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

their tribulations drive my crew into the idea of 
giving up the trip, I spent two hours sewing a 
netting front into the door of the tent, and with 
more air and no flies the night finished out well. 

The 30th was hot and thundery, with showers. 
I had a lesson about putting out fires, being the 
last to leave the luncheon place. Looking back 
from some way on, the haze down the valley seemed 
smoky, and the boys asked me if I had surely put 
out the fire, "put water on it." I had not, and 
as it was on naked ground and virtually out would 
have taken what chances there were, myself. 
Not so the Indians. Young E. ran back, quite a 
way, to make sure. Luckily he found the fire out. 
They were right in taking no risk. 

Before long we departed from my old route 
and turned west two or three miles across a lake 
I had visited in 1903, but not traversed. A long 
portage to Side Brook, a short run upstream, and 
a portage across a lightly timbered plain brought 
us out on the Assiwaban some three or four miles 
above the falls. Luxurious travel this, and fast, 
for I went only once over the portages myself, and 
the boys were quick in bringing up the second load. 

I had left my rod at William's, so made up a 
good-sized salmon fly to a short line and a dry 
stick, and in the twilight slapped — literally — the 
water for fish. In a short time I had ten, of about 
one and a half pounds. The big hook let nothing 
go. This night we slept. As on the night before, 
the aurora was fine, particularly in its showy 
latitudinal bands. 

We made great time up river, shoving over the 
swift shallows with three paddles and using a 
towing line at only one place. It is notable that 
the Indians do not use the regular setting pole on 



WIND 199 

this river; possibly there is little poling done in this 
region anywhere. 

A bear which swam the river in the afternoon, 
after the muskrat fashion of his kind, cost us a 
little wasted time looking for him in the bushes 
and we stopped on the wind lake near the outlet. 
We really ought to have kept on through the 
lake instead of camping, it was glassy calm; but 
the dark water and sky ahead looked so strangely 
shadowed and portentous, as if any sort of a down- 
pour and wind convulsion might break, that I 
respected the misgivings of the others, not to 
mention my own. But ominous as the outlook 
was nothing unusual occurred after all. Whether 
or not we had broken the weather rule — if so our 
sin was slight as things looked — a northwester 
kept us hopelessly windbound the next day. We 
climbed a high rock hill alongside the camp, a 
landmark from far down the river. My two young 
impudents made the occasion a race, beating me 
handily, both of them. Coming down they tried 
the same game, but this was not so bad. Young 
E. and I reached camp together, with Matthew 
well behind. Later we fell to making maps 
on the sand, a hundred feet long, and discussed the 
country beyond. 

By morning the wind eased and things were 
better. I stirred the camp out at three, and we 
reached the upper part of the lake on calm water. 
Turning across from the high southern cliffs to 
the north side the wind came down again from the 
great gap, the sea rose fast. We were all anxious 
before we got over. The distance across the lake 
looks short, but is deceptive. We paddled like 
devils, but the high north wall moved away as we 
went. Toward the last some water came in, not 



200 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

much, but in that worst of wind-funnels anything 
might happen; we were thankful to get over. 
Then came a hard, wet dance getting up the shore, 
just such as Q. and I had had the year before; 
as then, we hung close to the rocks, slopping about 
in their backwash for miles. Young E. was 
unhappy; he had been moody ever since we reached 
the lake. The place is bad enough anyway, and 
to a person brought up in fear of rock demons and 
the underwater people, it is easily no place to be 
in when wind is abroad. At the time I did not 
know much about these ruling powers of the place, 
and considered E. merely water timid, which with 
all allowance he doubtless was. It is fair to say 
that he somewhat distrusted the very light and 
well-burdened canoe. 

Once out of the lake we made the five miles 
to the forks and camped in the old spot, where the 
kettle stick of Q. and myself was still in place over 
the ashes we had left. On the way we watched 
a bear, high up on the side of the valley; we could 
have gone up and shot him, almost surely, but 
the bushes were too wet to be pleasant, and as he 
soon disappeared over the high level, a long climb, 
we did not follow. 

Showers followed until night; the men left 
my sleeping things out, and with wet trousers and 
a wet blanket I slept cold, as did E. too. The 
hardbread gave out, an inconvenient matter here, 
and we had to take up flour; it developed that 
E. did not know how to cook it. 

An episode of the next day, August 2, changed 
the face of my affairs suddenly, to the extent of 
putting back my visit to the high barrens for a 
month. As we put out from the eddy into the 
stream a vicious gust rocked the canoe, and E. 




Nahpayo, Pakuunnoh, Ah-pe-wat, 1906 




From the High Portage 



COMPLICATIONS 201 

urged that it was too windy to go. Such a thing 
as being windbound on a small running river was 
a new idea to me, and I held him to it awhile ac- 
cordingly. He had been timid about wind through- 
out; I had reflected often upon the comparative 
dash of the Naskapi. We worked along slowly 
a half mile, keeping close to the bank out of the 
current, when E. complained that it was too hard, 
and we landed for a time, watching the wind and 
making sand maps. After an hour of this E. pro- 
posed that we abandon the river and take the 
Indian land trail from the forks; he said he could 
neither paddle nor pole, he was used up. I con- 
sented, and we dropped back. From the forks the 
two started ahead with packs while I waited to 
come in on the second turn, and while they were 
gone I thought things over. The new plan seemed 
doubtful. We could be windbound on the bar- 
rens as well as on the water. With the double 
portaging necessary it would take forty or fifty 
miles of walking to get even as far as the high 
portage, and much more time than by water. When 
the two came back I spoke of the matter, and E., 
who now protested that he was "akushu," sick, 
said that he did not intend to go to George River 
anyway. We were now taking the chance of 
missing the Naskapi on the river, for they come 
out that way, besides, if not so important, of seeing 
no new country. I said that if he was not going 
to Tshinutivish I preferred to keep the river, and 
we would better bring the packs back. I offered 
to pole up the river slowly, and let him walk the 
bank; and he being not well I would go up the 
hill and bring back his pack myself. Not much was 
said, and I started off for the packs with the boy, 
leaving young E. to get luncheon. I returned 



202 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

slowly, to give time for the cooking, letting the 
boy reach camp some time ahead. When I got 
back nothing had been done toward luncheon, 
and E. was evidently in a rage. He announced that 
he was going home at once. Talk followed; but 
the amount of it was, on his part, that he demanded 
to be taken home in the canoe. He would have 
gone to Tshinutivish by the hill, he said, if I had 
kept to that route; he was not sick except for 
paddling and poling. Now he was going home 
afoot anyway. I offered to go over the hill if 
he must, but he wouldn't now. I urged him to 
stay until morning, then we would talk it over and 
do the best thing. I insisted that they take pro- 
visions, pointing out that I couldn't possibly use 
what I had. I offered to take them across the 
river in the canoe — we were between the forks — 
if they must go. Everything I urged only made 
him worse. If I had asked him not to knock his 
head against a rock it seemed as if he would have 
gone and done it at once. At the shore I learned, 
later, that he was known by these blind rages, 
which would last some hours. After they were 
over he would be ashamed and apologetic. 

We were at It with signs, questions, bad Indian 
speech and English on my part, — signs, strong 
talk, and hopping about and good Indian on his. 
Any white man as mad as he would have done 
something; any traveler in the presence of such a 
manifestation as E.'s would have kept his feet 
under him and stayed between the Indian and the 
gun as I did. E. would have been nothing to 
deal with at arm's length, but strong, quick little 
Matthew would have made himself felt somehow. 

At last, while I was looking into my dictionary 
for words to go on with they started away, and 



BACK TO THE COAST 203 

when I looked up again to speak they were some 
way off disappearing among the trees. They had 
five or six rations of eatables which I had pressed 
upon them, that amount being at hand in a bag 
we had intended to leave at the forks as a cache. 

Things had gone pretty fast, and I sat for an 
hour on the river bank, elbows on knees and chin 
In hands. It was not too obvious what to do. 
The Indians should come along in five or six days, 
perhaps sooner; they passed the forks at just this 
time the year before. There was not much point 
in going on alone; it would be hard and slow, and 
even if I met the Indians would involve ten or 
twelve days of solitude, while their companion- 
ability after seeing the E.'s at the shore would be 
unsafe to depend on. Old E. had shown disap- 
proval when I spoke of wanting to see the Naskapi, 
losing no chance to depreciate them, and lately I 
had had an impression that the young men too did 
not want me to meet them. They were safe to make 
all the trouble they could. Finally I decided to 
go back to the post, get my mail, and if circum- 
stances allowed, to come back inland with the 
Indians. In an hour or two I had a rowing frame 
and oars roughed out against need in getting 
through the lakes if they were windy, got the tent 
up handily, the stakes being already in, and 
turned in later as the moon rose. The canoe I put 
close outside the tent, though there was little 
chance of the deserters trying to take it. Once in 
a while through the night I looked out, but the 
boat was always there in the moonlight. 

My idea of the situation was that E. was home- 
sick, timid, and out of tune with the enterprise 
when we arrived at the forks. Yet he might not 
have let himself get out of hand as he did if a new 



204 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

circumstance had not been added. This was the 
discovery that caribou were moving in the country 
beyond. They had noted, what missed me, that 
there were deer hairs washed up along the banks 
of the river, shed while the animals were crossing 
the stream above. At midsummer the winter 
hair is falling oif, and sometimes washes up in 
quantity along the shores, as Mrs. Hubbard found 
it the year before on the upper George while the 
great migration was passing. Besides, there were 
deer tracks on the hill where Matthew and I had 
gone for the packs. The boy went cautiously on 
from the packs to the crest of the ridge and looked 
long over the barrens, saying "Ah'tif,"* "Scat- 
tering deer about." Now the southern Indians 
had had no deer for two years, and were shortened 
for meat as well as skins for clothes, lodges, and 
snowshoes. The men must get back, make ca- 
noes and get their outfits, and go with their 
families to their hunting grounds. 

The boy had reached camp first and reported, 
while I rested along by the way, not caring to get 
in before luncheon was ready, and by the time 
I came in E. was worked up to his uncontrollable 
stage. If we had been able to talk freely together 
things would have come out better. As it was, 
but for E.'s peculiarity of temper the breakup 
would hardly have occurred. Still, I doubt his 
going far in any case. My notion of keeping to the 
river on account of meeting the northern Indians 
was justified, for they came down the very next 
day, close behind me. 

At three in the morning I turned out, and in 

an hour was off. Then followed one of those days 

when the homing instinct is free and opportunity 

serves. I am not sure that I made a wise expendi- 

*Ah-teef. 



A LONG DAY'S PADDLE 205 

ture of strength that day, for there was no real 
need of pushing, but save for a few moments the 
canoe moved steadily until six o'clock — fourteen 
hours. In front of me on a pack was a cup, some 
dry pea-meal ration, a pipe, tobacco, and matches. 
The morning was calm and fine. On a point in 
the wind lake I landed long enough to take aboard 
a stick or two for rigging a sail, but kept on by 
paddle, swinging away as the hours went and losing 
few strokes through the day. At the foot of the 
Natua-ashish I pitched the unused oars and frame 
sticks into the bushes, where we found them in 1910. 
Save at that place I did not stop. It cost only the 
time of a stroke to light a match, or take a swallow 
of water or a mouthful to eat, and so the day went. 
Wind came strong ahead the last miles to the falls, 
and I had to use strength, but kept moving. At 
six, by the sun, I was at the portage. I had not 
hurried, but fourteen hours of continuous paddling 
is a long shift. It had been good weather for 
traveling, and I had in mind the feebleness of a 
single paddle when weather goes wrong. But 
by keeping the rule of using good weather as it 
passes I had missed the Indians, and perhaps a 
moral lies here. 

I boiled the kettle above the falls and meant 
to camp, but after supper the call of the trail was 
not spent and I took a pack over the portage, 
then another, then the canoe. When I picked up 
the fourth load it was getting dark and beginning 
to rain. By the time I had dropped down river 
two or three miles almost utter darkness set in and 
a breeze came from ahead with real rain. Then, 
remarking to the place generally, for we all talk 
a little when alone on the trail, "This is not 
traveling weather,"— I turned over the canoe on a 



206 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

tolerable mossy shelf, boiled a final kettle, and 
slept as I could. It was toward midnight. I had 
tucked away some fifty miles, including the por- 
taging. 

At five I was off again, keen to be over the 
wider waters before wind should rise, and I was 
none too soon. Following the rain a strong north- 
wester was pushing down, and I drove straight 
north across the bay to meet it, so as to have the 
weather gage on a long point east. By the time 
the water whitened up I had offing enough, came 
about, and danced down for Voisey's with hands 
full to keep from broaching to as the balky canoe 
yawed to right and left. There is a curious flat 
rock or shoal somewhere toward Voisey's, under 
water. The tide was coming up and the wind 
going down, in such balance that once over the 
shoal I could not go forward or back, and felt 
curiously helpless. I was afraid of being pitched 
out, but managed to work off sideways and get to 
going again. The place amounts to a trap. 

Sitting near the end of a light canoe there is 
always some chance of being jumped overboard 
in broken water, and besides, even when one is 
rowing, there is the possibility of being caught 
broadside by a gust as the canoe shoots out upon 
the wave and blown actually out of water. About 
high shores, when squalls are strong, this might 
well happen. A compliment to a good steersman 
in the North is, "He can't be thrown out," but this 
relates chiefly to running rapids. 

The last run, through the backwash of the 
steep point outside Voisey's house, was as much 
of a jumping matter as I remember, but the canoe 
blew on through to shallow water behind the point 
and I hopped overboard without harm from the 



UN'SEKAT 207 

boulders. It was no joke to get the canoe from 
the water to the lee of a large boulder near, in the 
strong wind. I tried many times before succeed- 
ing. 

Voisey was just ready to start off somewhere 
with his family, but was willing to help me. This 
was a narrow escape from having to work my own 
way down the coast without oars. If I had been 
twenty minutes later in getting out of camp in the 
morning I should have been windbound, and he 
would have been gone. He was only waiting for 
the wind to let down. The moral as to using one's 
weather was peculiarly easy to draw that year, for 
we rarely had more than one day of calm at a time, 
and bad weather held on longer than good. 

The wind blew down rather quickly, and Voisey 
handed me over to the Un'sekat people that night. 
There were several strange Eskimo there with 
the Noahs. The little house had been enlarged 
on one side, but there were eleven of us, with a 
going cook stove. It was very warm weather, and 
the place was well battened against flies. I was 
politely given a place next the wall and room to 
stretch out in, the others lying more or less across 
one another. Of close places I have known it was 
one of the least to be recommended. We had 
about ninety cubic feet of air apiece. Some one 
remarked in the morning that it had been "warm" 
in there. 

Antone and a young friend named Poy took 
me down to the post. Poy, otherwise Boaz, was 
the best hunter in Nain, and withal rather shy 
and hard to photograph. I was to meet him once 
again that year after a more serious experience. 

Wind failed and we opened Daniel's winter 
house for the night, where mosquitoes were as 



208 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

thick inside as out. At seven on the 6th we were 
at the post, and I told my tale. Guy said the E. 
boys were a lot of crooks anyway. 

Rather early on the 7th in came old and young E. 
and their families and six Naskapi. Three of the 
latter were old acquaintances, Ostinitsu, Nahpayo, 
and Pakuunnoh, and the other three I knew also 
from 1903. The younger men were extremely 
friendly, asking, ''Now will you go with us?" I 
could not be sure until I had seen my mail. 

Old Ostinitsu looked more thoughtful. E. 
would naturally have told him our tale. The latter 
tried to put on severity and insisted that I had 
compelled the boys to leave me. Their story 
was that I had threatened them and driven them 
from camp without food, Matthew being nearly 
barefoot; if they had not been able to go to one of 
their winter places they might have starved; I 
did not know how to travel, and insisted on going 
the wrong way. Of course young E. insisted this 
was the truth, but in time things eased off. There 
was not much for me to do unless with my knuck- 
les. The first time I had to pass some of the really 
nice E. women, who had done me so well at their 
camp. I hated to do it, expecting them to look 
scissors at least. To my surprise, and I must say 
relief, they had a demure look of something near ap- 
proval. The truth was that they had all been well 
scared for fear of consequences, and the wives doubt- 
less needed no light on their husbands' characters. 
It might have been better in the long run if I had 
taken steps against them, or at least threatened 
them into a proper state of mind. But I could 
not look for any support from the Hudson's Bay 
Company, rather the contrary, and a magistrate 
would be far to seek. I kept a fairly stiff face. 




Abram and George Lane 




Sam Bromfield with Salmon, 1906 



DAVIS INLET 209 

I had rather a good time for a few days with 
the other Indians, who seemed to think that the 
E.'s had come out rather small. Nahpayo asked 
me if I came through the Natua-ashu alone, 
making signs of paddling, and all looked impressed. 
They themselves would not care to; it is when 
alone that one has decidedly to fear the demons 
of such places. Napao told me of his father, Kat- 
shiuas, whom I knew in 1903, and said he was well. 
In the spring he had told Guy that he thought his 
father must have starved, as he had not heard 
from him for some time. 

On the wharf scales, which I think weigh light, 
Na'pao stood at one hundred and forty pounds. He 
had grown to be a handsome fellow the last year. All 
his party looked well, a matter of deer supply. 
Pakuunnoh weighed one hundred and fifty-two, 
and a younger man one hundred and fifty-four. 
We all showed off with the fish weights, at which 
some of the younger shore people outdid the 
Indians and appeared rather well, and even I came 
off not so ill, for of course they were all unused to 
these putting-up trials. The Naskapi are not 
heavily muscled, though everlasting on the trail. 
After the show was over I reached up to the top 
of the weighing frame, pulled myself up with one 
arm and walked off. Looking back I saw Nahpayo 
go up slyly and try it himself. I caught his eye, 
shook my head slightly, and he looked a bit 
sheepish as he failed. 

The steamer came in on the 9th, and the In- 
dians were off within a day. Toward the last the 
Indians' disposition to help me along fell off. 
Earlier, Nahpayo had told Guy that I was going up 
with them. They were disappointed that I was 
not going to set up a trading post, for I had told 



210 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

E., with a certain impolicy, that I was only out to 
see things, and the old man could not pass by an 
opportunity for making himself felt. He was 
interpreter for the Naskapi, there were some re- 
lationships among the wives, and though they 
cared little for him personally, in matters of white 
man against Indian they would take his side. 
Moreover, my power of communication with them 
was too limited to be effective at such a time. Old 
E. was not so bad; we had a talk in which he said 
the boys were sorry for what they had done and 
would like to make it up. Ostinitsu, too, civilly 
told me where their camp was, at the narrows 
of Mistinipi. But they all fell away at the last, 
and an Indian says no disagreeably. Nor was 
old E. then sympathetic over the results of his 
genius for making trouble. His part had been 
plain to predict. As a friend of mine among the 
shore people said afterward, "About all the rows 
along here come from old E." 

It never rains but it pours. Added to other 
things I had had no mail by the steamer. "Bad 
news travels fast" was my only consolation. For 
a time I was at the post, then Guy and I went 
over to Lane's Bay to visit Sam Bromfield. Mean- 
while I picked up odds and ends from the people 
about. Discussing Eskimo, Mrs. Dicker, long 
intimate with the coast, said they were more keen 
than Indians to get whiskey and told of their 
shooting through a house from outside when drunk. 
This was near Rigolet. Three Eskimo there had 
some gin, got to fighting in a boat, and all were 
drowned. They were worse than Indians when 
drinking. She agreed that the E. boys would be 
a dangerous lot if they had drink; and old E. 
himself said the same. The E.'s get some effect 



SAM BROMFIELD'S 211 

from spruce beer. It is surprising how a mere 
trace of alcohol affects such people, people whose 
race has never had it. Mrs. D, hadn't much fancy 
for Eskimo women, but respected those of the 
Indians. The women of the E. family certainly 
seemed good people. 

Guy and I had a stiif time getting to Sam 
Bromfield's. At the point of the bay the swell 
and sea from north piled up against the out- 
going tide in a heavy, broken "lop." The boat, 
though low, would have done well enough reefed 
down, but Guy was not a reefer. If I wanted to 
see the "thing that couldn't be done" on salt 
water, I should get into a boat with Guy and 
Spracklin. This time I was cold, which is not 
good for one's serenity at such times. It was a 
savage, cold, rainy afternoon. The storm brought 
in many gulls; thousands of kittiwakes — "tick- 
lers" — went with us for hours, often close about. 
Their white droppings were like a beginning 
snowstorm, hitting the boat thirty or forty times, 
nor did we ourselves wholly escape. Yagers, sharp 
winged and swallow built, the "bo'suns" of 
fishermen and hens of the French, attacked 
fiercely the larger gulls, which were glad to aban- 
don their sea pickings. These hunter gulls, as 
graceful as fierce, were black above, with white 
breasts and a black bar across the neck. 

Sam had a very presentable family. We all 
talked endlessly the first evening, Sam in the lead. 
The old violin and the new violin, the grapha- 
phone and the talk went on long into the night. 
For the rest of the week I was there we were steady 
enough, but Sam's first fizz is of high pressure, 
the fun is good anyway, and there is nothing for it 
but to turn in and join. 



212 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

I had thought of bringing a graphaphone that 
year, for a novelty, but it would have been coals 
to Newcastle indeed. There were no less than 
seven from this bay to Shung-ho, just above 
Davis Inlet, and most of the talk along was of 
new records, chiefly vaudeville songs and smart 
dialogue. Sam had ^100 worth of records, yet 
some of these people had hardly enough to eat 
in winter. I could not blame them much. They 
were only part Eskimo, and blood of the gay world 
was in them all. Moreover, the bay life was not 
what it had formerly been. The trees had been 
burnt, deer no longer swarmed from the interior, 
the old superabundance of sea and shore game had 
fallen away; in summer the waters were swept by 
schooners from south. The life had been good 
while it was easy; now that it was harder the 
things of the outer world brightened to them, and 
it was not strange that the ragtime tunes gave them 
more of a lift than the more serious music. 

The speech here is, I suppose, Devonshire. 
Mrs. B. said, recounting a punishing trip of the 
family from the post the week before, "By the 
time we had he (Sam) there it would have been 
dark" (if the wind had failed). All use the 
nominative thus, and the objective is reversed 
in the same way, as in the classic example of 
certain children regarding their supposed mother, 
"Her don't belong to we. Us don't belong to 
she." 

With dogs about the house and too many mos- 
quitoes, I netted windows and stopped holes 
smartly, as I did in most houses before settling 
down — to little result save for getting the netted 
windows open for air. Thorough killings in the 
evening did only passing good. In the end I won 



IN LANE'S BAY 213 

by banking the underpinning with sand. They 
had been coming in from below. 

Sam talked of the coast northward. The Nach- 
vack Eskimo burled their more important people 
high upon a rock slope, walling them in and 
putting stone slabs across. All personal pos- 
sessions were put alongside, kayak, utensils, 
clothes, and the needles and special things of the 
women. "What a pity to put a fine kayak there!" 
said Sam. Everything Is damaged beyond use 
before leaving. Guns are put out of gear, and 
pots have holes knocked in them. Even now the 
older men put meat on the graves, and other 
observances survive. On killing seal the tip of the 
heart and liver are thrown Into the water. Jim 
Lane, who used to hunt at Ungava, still does it 
"for luck." Anywhere along the bays an offering 
in time of storm or for hunting luck is well 
regarded. The Moravians, after a hundred and 
forty years of striving, say they do not hope to 
suppress these Ideas. 

During the whale hunt about Nachvack the 
women and children must remain silent and mo- 
tionless while the men are out. On one occasion 
a mouse ran across the floor, a child ran after It, 
and the whale of course was lost. 

Sam took me to his salmon net, some eight 
miles up. After the blow he expected twenty 
fish, but there were only two, besides one of "pele" 
size, four pounds, and a large red sucker. The 
schooners had cut the fish off outside. Their cod 
traps have reduced his catch to a tenth of what it 
used to be. Climbing " Summer House Hill " I could 
see lakes running north on the main stream, called 
Hunt's River, also "Grassy Lakes," off west and 
south toward Hopedale, with a waste of burnt 



214 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

country west. There had been quite an area of 
light, straight spruce about this bay, chiefly black 
spruce, but some tall white ones. We saw only 
one seal. 

Nearby is a very old Eskimo camp site, once just 
above tide on the narrowing bay, but now, by the 
gradual elevation of the coast, above a high bank 
where no Eskimo would think of camping, even 
if the present shallow river offered anything to 
camp there for. 

The summer house was the usual small box 
with a place for fire. When Sam turned in he 
wrapped his neck up well. There was a weasel 
about, he said, and he had heard they would cut 
one's throat sometimes. 

He discussed *'fair play." An Eskimo had 
brought a silver foxskin to Hopedale and was 
offered ^60 for it. He could get a good deal more 
at Davis Inlet and begged hard to be allowed to 
sell it there. But he was not allowed to, under 
penalty of being cut off from all store privileges. 
Sam wondered if this was not "unchristian." 

I reminded him that the missions buy low 
but sell low. They lost largely on an accumula- 
tion of silvers not long ago, and have resorted to 
paying the hunter something down, about half, I 
think, then selling the skin in London for the best 
price possible and paying the balance afterward. 
At Nain, S. told, they had twenty-five silvers the 
last year. He shot one in front of his house not 
long ago, firing twenty-two shots. It brought 
^180, certainly good pay for his ammunition. He 
has caught thirty or forty at one time or another, 
getting four one year. 

Sam's ethics of trade are not common. One 
year he sold young E. a dog. E. was offering 



ETHICS OF TRADE 215 

eight or ten dollars for a dog, but Sam said this one 
was worth only four dollars, and refused to take 
more. So with his son Abram, who sold Easton, 
traveling with Wallace, in 1905, a beautiful ranger 
seal sleeping bag for six dollars. Easton offered 
more, but A. knew that a dollar a skin was the 
proper price and would take only that. 

But Sam was rather bitter about the low prices 
the Hudson's Bay Company has paid in the past, 
and said they would be doing no better now if the 
competition of the French company did not compel 
them to. It is hard for the people to see the high 
prices paid at Hamilton Inlet, where there is 
competition, compared with what they get here. 
All regard a new trader, such as the French com- 
pany, as a mere deliverer. But new traders 
begin high, to get the trade, and I fancy the tale 
of overreaching would be the same in the end. 
Moreover, the traders sometimes pay too much. 
One year an incompetent fur buyer paid absurdly 
high prices — he must have lost heavily for his 
principals — and I found the next year that furs 
were being held in the bays for his promised return. 
Meanwhile his prices were taken as throwing light 
upon the practices of established dealers. Ex- 
pectations for the future were high. The non- 
appearance of this trader relieved the situation 
after a time. The rapidly ascending prices of 
recent years have given a bad look to even per- 
fectly fair ones of the earlier period. 

But the doubts of the people are not without 
a basis. Fair play is not too common where the 
sharpened organization of the world comes in 
contact with the isolated hunter. Trade makes 
when it can, as much as it can, and the helpless are 
exploited. At any rate Sam, living to his prin- 



216 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ciples as with young E. and Easton, had a right 
to speak. He had indeed to be wideawake not to 
sell his foxes too low, now that his fishing grounds 
were being cut off by the cod men. 

The salmon net was absolutely empty the morn- 
ing after we arrived, and we dropped down to 
Jim Lane's by luncheon time. Jim's trout, caught 
in fresh water, are even better than those outside 
in the bay, combining the good qualities of both 
the fresh and salt-water fish. Jim's small boy was 
about the age of mine, and with his very way. 

There was wolf and deer talk in the evening. 
Sam told about a deer chase he and Abram had, 
using a kometik and dogs. They "brown" them 
in the bunch with their repeating rifles while the 
sled is going. A large stag slowed up as the sled 
came on, as if to save getting out of breath, stood 
erect on his haunches, and held his two fore hoofs 
upright, then clapped them together with great 
force and sound. His nostrils opened and he blew 
jets of steam into the cold air with great fury. 
Holding his large split hoofs upright he snapped 
the halves together with a loud cracking. At the 
demonstration the leading dog shied off; the second 
leader jumped for the stag, and by a blow from one 
hoof was laid out motionless. The other hoof had 
followed, for the deer struck right and left, but 
the second blow missed because the dog was al- 
ready down. The team stood off after that. In 
this manner, say the hunters, the old stags kill 
wolves. A Cree hunter has told me of having 
a woodland caribou he was chasing stop in the 
same way in time to tread down the snow around 
him and have room in which to fight. 

On a time, one of Sam's tales went, wolves 
howled at him all one night near his place. In the 




Enough for a Cache 




Hair Skins Drying, Mistinipi, 1906 



WOLVES 217 

morning he disabled one, whereupon the other 
approached him behind. Thinking the place was 
"alive with them" he did not shoot the second 
one, but shouted until it went away. Later, when 
he found that there had been only two, he followed 
and finished the first one, much chagrined at 
losing the other. 

At another time William Flowers, living in the 
next bay, had also a little experience. He saw 
fifteen or twenty wolves on the ice and struck off 
another way among trees to avoid them. Soon he 
ran into more wolves, who made for him instantly. 
The first lot heard the uproar and came too. There 
may have been thirty or forty altogether. He 
killed three and disabled a good many more before 
they left. Flowers, a very steady person, owned 
to being too scared to do good shooting. He 
doubted their knowing he was a man at first sight, 
taking him, rather, among the trees, for a deer. 

Somewhere along the shore " a bunch of women" 
were in a tent while the men were hunting. A 
child was outside and a wolf made for it, where- 
upon the women yelled until he went off. The 
men did not believe the story, but the women 
would not sleep that night. Before morning 
the wolf came, ripped the tent, and was shot. 
He was an immense old wolf, with no back 
teeth. 

A sort of Red Riding Hood tale came later 
from Spracklin. His girls, one year, complained 
of being followed about by three dogs, which they 
had to keep off by throwing stones. It was 
thought that they belonged to old John Lane. At 
one time the men chased them under the landing 
stage and punished them with stones. When at 
last Lane came over from his bay he said they 



218 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

were wolves; he trapped them that winter in the 
flat west of the harbor. 

Spracklin, who liked his milk, always brought 
along a nanny goat from home on his schooner; 
it picked up its living about the station. One day 
there was a disturbance outside and the goat was 
found in the ring with one of the large foxes of the 
region, the goat butting with spirit and the fox 
dancing about to get a nip. 

The weather settled warm, with fine aurora 
on clear nights. The first Sunday Abram and I 
walked to George Lane's little house, two miles 
east. On the way a shrike was having a sparring 
match in the air with two smaller birds, 
some two hundred feet up in the air. The 
little birds were as ready to attack as the 
shrike; it was hard to tell which started the 
trouble. 

Abram told me of an experience taking seven 
southern Indians to Hopedale with his dogs. 
They wanted him to go a way he did not want 
to take, an unusual route, which he refused to do. 
One of them took hold of him, showed anger, and 
was unpleasant. Upon this, A. called back his 
fifteen powerful dogs, who came bounding in eager 
for the fray. It must have been a stirring sight. 
The Indians, who had no guns, accepted his 
views with marvelous promptness, and were al- 
ways civil to him after that. Some of my friends 
the E.'s were in the group. 

"August 20. To net with Sam. He had 
twenty-five trout and a pele, the trout not large. 
Net set in form of a little cod trap. Fish nearly 
all dead, as they were not taken out yesterday, 
Sunday. Net bunged up with fuzzy weed; it 
is hard to keep them clear as late in the season as 



A RAISED BEACH 219 

this. Sam got a switchy stick and worked a long 
time beating the stuff off. 

"A fine raised beach east of the trout net, 
one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five 
feet above present sea level. Jim Lane's memory 
indicates two feet rise here in forty years. This 
would put the Eskimo camp site near summer 
house at least three hundred years back, 
which agrees with the age of the implements 
there." 

A cloud of lance, eel-like fish four or five inches 
long, were held in the little trout trap, keeping in a 
school, and absurdly enough not daring to go out 
through the two-inch meshes. Finally they set- 
tled to the bottom in despair, regardless not only 
of the big meshes, but of the opportunity offered 
by two four-foot openings. 

These fish behave very little like a salmon, 
one of which had gone through the trap like a shot, 
leaving a hole almost the size of a stovepipe. A 
trout weighing eleven pounds, however, stayed in. 
This trout was twenty-nine inches long and 
fifteen and seven eighths in girth. All fish grow 
large here. In October cod of sixty or seventy-five 
pounds are caught in shallow water on the bar 
near the house. 

Hereabouts a pine grosbeak is a "mope," a 
shrike a "jay killer" or "shreek." "The pret- 
tiest bird is what we call a fly-catcher, small, with 
yellow, white, and changeable blue, a little black 
cap on the head." 

Sam asked me one day if the water in the in- 
terior was all salt, as he had always heard. He told 
me that the term Great Grampus was a loose 
one, the proper name of this monster of the waters 
being 0-mi-oo-ah-lik (boat wrecker). It lives 



220 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

in Ungava Pond, where the waves are always 
mountainous. One cannot see across it. 

How strange people are! Here they were, the 
shore folk, taking the savage coast and shifting 
ice, the hunting of the white bear and walrus, 
and the dealings with the great sea itself, as all in 
the day's work, yet investing the innocent white moss 
and lake country behind with their most unheard of 
imaginings. It was a foregone conclusion that 
when I asked A. if he wanted to go inland with me 
after the mailboat came, his parents should decide 
that he could not be spared. 

The bay people like summer, and none the less 
for its shortness, but their real life is the winter 
life. The narratives are almost all of winter, of 
hunts and storms and journeys; and all revolve 
around the dogs. Only with his dogs and when 
out with his dogs is the Labrador man in his glory, 
whether he be white, mixed, or Eskimo. "With- 
out our dogs we might as well be dead," has been 
said to me by more than one. With the dogs 
they can bring their wood, haul their seals, drive 
to the far ice edge and away before the pack 
swings free. Inland for deer they go, near to the 
height of land, out again with meat, off to the 
trading posts. In summer the people are bound 
to the fishing, and the dogs range about the shore, 
or are left on islands when fish are to be taken to 
market or some journey for supplies made in the 
uncertain winds; but in the long winter the people 
and dogs are inseparable. Along the coast they 
go in the low sun and the keen air, whirling over 
the great white spaces among the islands, across 
the wooded necks and lakes, down into the bays 
and on. At the houses they dash up and stop, 
strong, cheerful Eskimo from Ramah and Nach- 




2q 



DOGS 221 

vack In the north to Hopedale and Aillik and Mok- 
kovik in the south, visiting and eating and passing 
on, — mainly. If one may say, for the joy of the 
road. Forty, fifty, a hundred miles a day they 
go when all is well, on under the high winter moon 
and the northern lights to their snowhouse inn. 

Sam could not bear that I should leave the 
coast without seeing dogs in harness, and one day 
he drove them to the sled on the level ground. It 
did not go well. Eagerly they bounded off 
only to foul their traces among snags and 
bushes. The distress and yells of the uncom- 
prehending leader were pathetic. It would not 
do, but I caught their spirit. The dogs are as keen 
as their drivers. The joy of the winter way to 
them all! 

It is not for me, seeing these dogs only in sum- 
mer, to say where their undoubted quality of de- 
votion ends and the fierceness of their wolf in- 
heritance takes on. These dogs of Bromfield's, 
and I have seen the like in others, would follow 
along the shore as we rowed to the net with all the 
appearance of our home dogs that cannot bear to be 
left behind, and in spite of our threatenings. I 
do not think it was the sculpins and rock cod they 
had in mind; they would get all they wanted, or 
all there were, anyway. 

Those dogs of Sam's were surely good dogs. 
A fine old white one, perhaps the "master dog," 
would sit long at A.'s feet on the beach and look 
into his eyes as only one's own dog ever looks, 
one's own dog. 

Yet that was the year of an occurrence, the 
Lane tragedy, in which dogs showed another 
character. It happened at Easter. Old John 
Lane, his wife, and grandson, going to the festivi- 



222 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ties at Hopedale In a great snowstorm, never 
arrived. They were last seen by a sledge driver, 
who drove off ahead of them, not on the ice, but 
on some land portion of the route. In a few days 
the dogs came home and were put into confine- 
ment pending further knowledge of what had 
occurred. Nothing more was actually known 
until just as I came up on the coast. A good deal 
of search had been made, but the snow had leveled 
everything over. When found at last the woman 
and boy were in the covered kometik untouched 
by the dogs, but of old John Lane only the scat- 
tered bones were left. It was probable that he had 
fallen in the deep snow and could not rise, but it 
was the opinion of those most used to the life 
that his dogs would not have touched him while 
he was alive. The dogs were killed upon the finding 
of the party, as is always done under such cir- 
cumstances. 

The question of hunger entered in, as the dogs 
may have stayed about until they were in straits. 
Here develops a curious trait of the Eskimo dog, 
though well known, apparently, in the region. 
Contrary to what one would expect, it is not 
dogs that are kept underfed that are most likely 
to attack persons, but the reverse. Not hunger, 
but the instinct of the chase in a strong, vigorous 
animal seems to be the mainspring. An animal 
heavily fed and gorged would doubtless be dull 
for a time, but a general high state is counted 
dangerous. It is the sporting instinct that is to be 
feared, the instinct of the fox hunter. 

Another fact in this connection long puzzled 
me. :It appeared that dogs were more apt to 
be dangerous in "thick" weather, in times fof 
falling snow, and when it is stormy and dark. In 



DOGS 223 

the end it occurred to me that as this did not seem 
to relate to anything in the human association 
it might go back to their original wolf period, and 
I asked the old hunters if the wolves hunted at 
such times. It seemed unlikely. We have all 
heard of the "truce of danger" among the animals, 
how the fiercest of them are mild in the presence of 
tumult and danger. But it appeared that wolves 
did hunt at such times, and particularly that deer 
killed by them were often found after the great 
storms. The old wolf instincts still wake the dogs 
to the chase when such weather comes on. 

The reason for their hunting caribou at such 
times seems plain. We who have hunted them in 
the woods of Maine and Canada know how ex- 
traordinarily passive and approachable they are 
in snowstorms. They allow one to come very near 
and are reluctant to go far when disturbed. 
Doubtless they feel that as their tracks are covered 
in they are secure, for all deer are chiefly concerned 
about their back track. Obviously they are a 
good deal hidden in snowstorms. In bright, 
breezy days almost all birds and animals are as- 
tonishingly harder to approach than in dull 
weather. 

Jim Lane had taken up his father's place. I 
talked with him and various other members of the 
family about the circumstances of the old people's 
last journey. Those who remained at home that 
night told me some things I wish I had written 
down; at the time it seemed as if I could not well 
forget them. Their accounts were not very differ- 
ent from some others that have been told in the 
world at one time or another. Their father, I 
think, appeared, and they both saw and heard. 
The dogs also were affected. 



224 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

As mailboat time approached, I made an ar- 
rangement with a neighbor to take me over to 
Fanny's when the weather permitted. The first 
calm morning his boat appeared coming up the bay, 
and as a matter of course I left the boat I was in 
and got on. We made a quiet trip to Fanny's, 
with lightish winds, almost faint, before I found 
out that he had not been coming for me at all, but 
was only going to Jim's. He regarded the day as 
too rough. 

The week at Bromfield's had been a peaceful 
rest. The family are uncommonly pleasant to 
visit. But I was chewing a rather bitter cud, 
nevertheless, unreconciled to leaving the country 
without a visit to the barrens, and if possible the 
Indians. If I left as things were the miserable 
story of the E.'s would follow me over the penin- 
sula from side to side, and no lodge would be open 
to me. The picture grew in my mind of sitting 
on a rock with old Ostinitsu, having got to his 
camp in some way, and hammering the truth into 
him. To go alone would hardly do. I remem- 
bered the Eskimo Aaron at Nain, who spoke Eng- 
lish and had been about the world; he had been 
willing to go inland with me at one time. If 
home news justified I could go north to Nain on the 
mailboat and look for him. It would be better 
in any event to start from there and come south 
to the Assiwaban, and not to go from Fanny's, for 
now the fall winds were on, strong from north, and 
cold. It was better to have these subarctic 
trades on one's back. 

The steamer came the 26th, with good news 
from home, and I went up like a cork. In a 
matter of hours I was at Nain, looking for Aaron. 
Then my prospects fell off again, for he was away 



A START FROM NAIN 225 

and no one else would go. The missionaries were 
preoccupied, chiefly about their steamer, the 
Harmony, now a month late, — perhaps in the ice 
at Chidley. There was only one thing to do, and 
I slipped away alone the morning of the 27th, 
leaving the place to its cares. It was afterward 
reported that I had gone north. 

Everything was wrong. It was my first row- 
ing that year and the gear was not tuned up; 
with a rope rowlock the oars are apt to twist a lit- 
tle and wear the hands. A southeast wind, a head 
wind, made things worse. Five miles south from 
Nain I came across a tent and a man codfishing, a 
nearly white man of a good kind, named Webb, 
from Port Manvers, north. He would sail me 
along a few hours for the price of a quintal of fish, 
but as we both thought the wind was going to 
shift to southwest and relieve my difficulties, I 
rowed on. It was a mistake; the wind held, 
increased, and before long a wide, tide-worked 
passage barred my way, though doubtless I could 
have got across in the course of time. I took to a 
smooth, barren island for the night, where there was 
a fairly sheltered lee and a little driftwood. The wind 
let up a little later, but I stuck to my fire. Rain 
came on, and sleeping under the canoe, which was 
rather narrow, the edges of my oilskin coat, which 
I had laid down on the ground, worked out under 
the drip and collected it under me. The coat was 
as good as a bath tub. Memo for travelers: 
Let not your ground-cloth get out under the eaves ! 

A fresh northwester was on in the morning, but 
with hard work I got on with a mile or two under 
something of a lee. Gyrating about in the puffs 
were a good many gulls; one a fine, business-like 
burgomaster — they are large, stout birds — who 



226 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

bore up wind and deliberately looked me over with 
his pale eye as he wore across a few yards away. 
He had something in his mind. That long beak 
with the hook is for tearing things on the beach. 

Then came a wide passage. The wind came 
with a long run here, from a deep bay reaching 
inland. Landing, I looked and looked again, 
then went back on a hill and looked more, trying 
to get the measure of the tide run on the other side. 
As things looked I could have got over, but the 
trouble with such places is that it takes half an 
hour to get to the worst of the tide run, and in that 
time new currents may develop, let alone more 
wind, and everything go to the bad. Not only 
does the traveler without local tide knowledge 
find himself thus standing on one foot and then 
on the other at such times, but the bay people too. 
This time I had some two hours of it. 

I put out gingerly, but was no sooner beyond 
the sheltered water under the shore, and out where 
the rough water had been, than everything quieted 
down and gave me no trouble. There was still a tide 
crotch bobble beyond the turn at the crested hill, 
which was almost but not quite troublesome, but 
from there the wind was nearly aft. 

For hours I rowed most of the time one side 
only, letting the wind do the work of the other oar. 
Such a yawing craft never was before. In the same 
wind the 1903 Oldtozvn would have rowed evenly 
and fast. 

I had not much hope of seeing any one along 
the way, for the bay people go to outside waters 
at this time for codfish. What I had in mind was 
to go as far as the high barrens anyway, beyond 
the forks of the Assiwaban, see the deer, and if 
things went well keep on to Mistinipi and the 



RICHARD 227 

Indians. If they had moved with the deer, as 
they had said they might, the round trip from 
Nain inland and back to Davis Inlet might cover 
some three hundred miles. If I had not been a 
good deal worked up about the situation I should 
not have taken on so large a job alone, particularly 
at that time of year. Nor was it certain that the 
Indians would be a pleasant or profitable find 
to make, anyway, as things were. 

What changed the face of things for me, for 
changed it was, was the findingof Edmund Winters 
at his place near Voisey's. Finding him at home 
I floored there, as a matter of course, and we all 
had things over in the evening. I owned up to 
not liking to make the trip alone. In the course 
of the evening Edmund and his wife talked to- 
gether, then asked me if their boy would do me 
any good. 

"How old is he?" 

"Fifteen, but he is strong." 

"I'll take him! Now show me the boy." 

About seven in the morning, August 29th, we 
started for the Assiwaban, some eight miles. 
Richard had never been in a canoe before, and I 
let him row while I paddled. We lunched at 
my camping place of July, where the date and 
record I had left at that time, as always in lone 
stopping places, looked quite historical now. A 
seal swam about at one hundred and fifty yards, 
throwing himself clear of the water in a mag- 
nificent back somersault at our shot. It did not 
follow that we had scraped him; they seem to do it 
for fun sometimes. 

On the portage by the falls black flies were 
plenty in the bushes, as is the way in Septem- 
ber. Two miles above on a gravel beach we 



228 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

camped, with an eye for trout, and the same 
redoubtable salmon fly I had used in July came into 
play, with its eight feet of line and a stick. We 
slapped the shallow water at twilight in good 
Assiwaban style, close to the shore, soon getting 
all we wanted; there were ten trout weighing some 
twenty-five pounds. We would haul them around 
sideways without any play and run them up the 
slopingbank. Richard cleaned them in the dusk. In 
the morning he called to me that there were two 
kinds, and so there were. Namaycush some were 
surely, one nearly two feet long. The few I have 
seen in the lakes have been deepish fish, but these 
were long and rangy, as if living always in running 
water. They were brilliantly colored. 

The rapids next day went slowly; Richard was 
not used to the running water. At our camp on the 
Natua-ashish trout were jumping, but our stick 
rod would not reach out to them; we did not need 
them anyway. There were few game tracks 
along the beaches, even in this year of caribou. 
Next day we were well punished getting toward the 
wind lake, inching for hours against vicious 
squalls; here some trained paddling power would 
have served. All at once the fuss abated, and the 
long wind lake, now on the Canadian map as 
Cabot Lake, let us through easily after luncheon; 
and although rain held us half a day, we made the 
forks September 1st. Rather than try the bad 
boating beyond in cold, wet weather we hid the 
canoe and some provisions at the forks. A can of 
pea-meal ration left there in July was intact. We 
had, by the way, left enough tins of this along back, 
cached beyond possible discovery, to take us out 
afoot to the coast at least half fed. ^- There was not 
much danger of personal harm from the Indians, but 




p_l 



ACROSS THE BARRENS 229 

with their own peculiar humor they might like 
to see how light of supplies and outfit we could 
travel. 

We started for the highlands with a few days' 
supplies of bacon, hardbread, tea, and tin rations, 
the light, round tent, and a blanket apiece. The 
combination gun, a few cartridges, a folding camera 
and films pretty much completed the loads of, 
say, thirty-five and twenty-two pounds. Richard 
had a hooded Eskimo frock or "dickey." We had 
tin cups and a small pail for the tea, and a rect- 
angular dripping pan of sheet iron some two and 
a half inches deep for frying and stewing. A 
square pan is less likely to upset than a round one, 
and fits such things as fish and most shapes of 
meat better. These "cooking tools" were very 
light. A notched stick three or four feet long, 
shoved into the ring of the pan, saved bending 
over, as one has to with a short handle. Such a 
handle is a great convenience with a thin pan, 
which must be held over the fire by the cook most 
of the time, or the fish will burn. 

It was a black, misty day of strong north wind, 
cold and cheerless, but luckily the wind came from 
one side and not ahead. The first caribou ap- 
peared soon in the deer bush among the rolling 
ridges, and I made a high miss. They were nearer 
than they looked, as things in the barrens are 
usually. There were seven or eight young bucks 
and does. It was late when we started, and as the 
climb to the high level was more than a thousand 
feet, by the end of the afternoon we were tired, 
although only twelve or fifteen miles out. We 
were then on a high reach of country leading west, 
with a streak of scattered spruce, dead and alive, 
running along for quite a distance; a sort of growth 



230 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

which generally appears on such damp north ex- 
posures. Rain began, and we put up the tent 
in the lee of a stunted tree or two. Wood came 
easily; the dead trees, white and hard, four or 
five inches through at the butt, were rotten at the 
ground and pushed over easily. With a butt under 
each arm we trailed them quickly to camp, and 
in twenty minutes had plenty of wood for all 
night, though scattered as the trees were it had 
taken some acres of land to furnish them. It 
had been very cold and raw all day, and oc- 
casional snow came with the rain. Now the gale 
increased. Only a wind break of such evergreen 
stuff as we could get together enabled us to keep 
the tent and fire from blowing away. If it had 
not rained much we could have used the tent as 
an extra blanket and got on without fire; as it was 
we agreed that one of us must stay up and keep the 
other warm. The boy had the first turn. He was 
off in an instant, and though the night was long it 
seemed a pity to wake him, especially as the fire 
took experienced management. At times I dozed 
in the firelight. Before morning the wind shifted 
east, a warmer quarter, and fell off a little, 
also the rain. I moved the wind-break to suit, 
and dawn came at last. How the boy did sleep! 
I thought I should have to drag him twice around 
the fire before getting him awake. When at 
last he became conscious he jumped readily to his 
feet and went to work with a will. Things were 
quieting down, I was all but asleep anyway, and 
in a few minutes must have gone well down to the 
level he had pulled up from. In three hours or 
so I felt a touch and faintly heard a whisper, 
"Cartridge! Shot cartridge!" I waked enough 
to find two or three and fell away again. When I 



ACROSS THE BARRENS 231 

finally turned out the boy was picking four 
ptarmigan, which he had killed with two shots. 
He was a silent boy, and a little shy then, having 
never been away from his people before. I was 
of a strange breed and he made no advances, but 
was an unusual boy nevertheless; his little white 
*' dickey" held most of the good qualities of dog, 
boy, and man. 

Off we went, a little late after the two nights 
wehadmadeof it, oneforeachof us, and in four or 
five miles had flanked a long pond and were broad 
off the high portage. We had occasionally seen 
some sign of the Indian route, — it is not a trail — 
here a stone laid upon a boulder on the crest of a 
ridge, there a burnt brand at the edge of a pond. 
The Indians go free, high over the shoulder of a 
hill, sloping off to the right or left for some wind- 
ing pond, across long levels and up some unbeliev- 
able slope — but where the footing is good. There 
is no visible path from where they leave the 
bushes near the forks to the hills south of the high 
portage where their signs appear no more. 

A bunch of caribou appeared before luncheon. 
They were feeding on the deerbush in a sheltered 
depression. We needed a meat cache there for the 
return and sacrificed a doe, weighted our packs reluc- 
tantly with meat, and went along familiar ponds to 
the southwest. We were carrying with a string 
over the head, with twigs under it to bear on, and 
another string around the points of the shoulders. 
The packs so carried kept wonderfully steady; 
they seemed a part of us. There was no swing- 
ing and lurching as we twisted about among the 
boulders, then perhaps down into the mud and 
up with a stretch upon a stone again. The wet 
weather had spoiled the traveling, doubled the work. 



232 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Misty rain drove from north again as we 
camped. But for being in the lee of a rifted 
boulder, some twenty feet long, we could not 
possibly have kept the tent up; it flapped and 
loosened as the gusts came around the ends of 
the rock, sometimes from one side and again the 
other. We would shove out the heavy stones 
which held the edges down and tighten up a little 
now and then, but it looked as if we should have 
the tent down before morning. Once in the 
evening I put my head up over the rock and took 
the wind and fine rain in my face. It was about 
impossible to bear the sting. We slept fairly; 
it was not so cold as the night before. 

Many caribou were feeding on the smooth hill 
north of Long Pond next day, moving off and on as 
we approached, and circling widely for our wind. 
They showed more curiosity than fear. A perky 
young buck walked up within fifty feet, dancing 
and performing as he tried to make us out behind 
a boulder. Catching our wind at last, he turned 
short, dove down the steep hill, dashed across 
the wide valley, and out of sight, as if pursued by 
demons. His instant change from a dancing 
prince to a panic-stricken fugitive, fairly falling 
over himself down the hill and not looking back, 
was very funny. An hour later we remarked 
that he must be going yet. 

Four or five of the deer that we had disturbed 
in crossing the hill soon appeared swimming across 
Long Pond below us, looking like ducks in the 
distance. Through the calmer hours came oc- 
casionally the warning note of geese as we passed 
the ponds. They spotted us far away on the ridges. 
The cry of loons was frequent, usually high 
in the air; their September uneasiness was on, 



< 



MICE 233 

they would soon be gone. Soon the geese and 
loons would be at the shore; Indeed by the time we 
were out the former were honking at us again from 
low points and islands, and at Fanny's I saw some 
part of the "million geese" Spracklin had told 
of there — a small part. There were no mice 
this year. Whether they had moved or died off 
is not clear. There is one circumstance that 
supports their migrating, — their habit of swim- 
ming the rivers in numbers at night. It would 
seem that they could not have any motive for 
merely swimming about, butwere going somewhere. 
In 1905 they were so numerous on the land that 
we often saw two at a time as we were walking. 
Every low twig was riddled by them. One could 
not lay bread or meat on the moss without pick- 
ing up a dozen or two of their minute droppings. 
It was pleasanter this year without them, but in 
their presence one thing was always worth con- 
sidering, that so long as they were about one 
could not possibly starve. They were like field 
mice, with rather stumpy tails. There were lem- 
mings, also, two kinds as I remember. The idea of 
the mice being night swimmers is only inferential; 
they were rarely if ever on the water daytimes, yet 
all the trout of any size were full of them. A 
trout of only a pound weight would contain several. 
The fish actually tasted mousey, and we used to 
rip them up as fast as caught and let the mice 
drop out, which seemed to help matters. 

The wolves sang at night, never very near. 
The pitch seemed a little higher than that of the 
Eskimo dogs. The steady hunting call of the 
wolves came sometimes in alternation with the cry 
of the loons. Ptarmigan were scarce. In 1905 
we ought to have seen one hundred and fifty in 



234 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

such a walk, instead of the dozen we did in fact. 
Ravens were rather plenty, and jays, the latter 
very dark. 

The rainy camp at the "Black Rock," as we 
called it, was the last at which we put up a tent; 
after that we used the tent for a blanket. The 
nights were generally freezing, and we had little 
enough covering, but slept snug together in 
our clothes and always fared well. The packs 
were now a little heavy with meat, and the next 
night R. owned up to being very tired. Just before 
stopping we started a band of four great stags with 
immense horns. They would not let us come 
nearer then a quarter of a mile, and went off in 
a great run. Presently they appeared on the side 
of a steep hill quite near, slanting up at a great 
pace. They were a grand sight in their wild rush 
along the sky line. The old stags are always shy. 

Now, with fine weather, it was good to be out. 
There were no mosquitoes, and with their depar- 
ture the curse of the country was lifted. Now 
we could sit down in peace, or walk, or have our 
thoughts. As the moss dried out on the hills near 
the height of land they looked almost snowy — they 
were velvet to the feet, and the days of walking 
were never too long. Sometimes we went over 
the hills, sometimes along the deer paths by the 
lakes. 

At the third camp we left the tent, some food, 
and my skin boots. These last are as nothing in 
such a walk; when long wet they become pulpy, 
"tripy," — and sharp stones cut through easily. 
This cache was at the thatched tree where Q. 
and I stopped with Indians the year before, on a 
small, pretty lake overlooked by a fine, rounded 
hill rising abruptly from the south side. 



OSTINITSU'S CAMP 235 

With beautiful Hawk Lake to the left we kept 
the highlands beyond and crossed the height of 
land in a high saddle, the third notch north of the 
regular portage route. Beyond were wide, boggy 
levels, well afloat, but we made Mistinipi before 
night at a point three or four miles down the lake, 
our crosscut having saved distance which we paid 
for in hard bog travel. During the afternoon a 
young stag furnished us with a reassuring cache 
of meat. There were tamaracks where we finally 
stopped, on a friendly level beside the lake, where 
wind could not do much harm, and where if neces- 
sary, being tentless, we could put up a brush roof. 
It rained a bit through the night, but as it was 
warm we were not the worse. A long belt of 
trees following the lake was full of ravens, cawing 
almost like crows, but with more modulation and 
a pleasanter voice. They had gathered there 
with an eye to certain deer carcasses, hauled up 
here and there along the shore by Indians. In 
the morning we left our blankets, took the camera, 
gun, and a bite to eat, and started for the main 
narrows to see if the Indians were still there. I 
was not very hopeful. Nevertheless in an hour, 
as we turned a point, across a wide bay appeared 
three deerskin lodges, surprisingly conspicuous 
and handsome in the sunshine. We brightened 
up and pushed around the bay in high spirits. 
Old Ostinitsu was cornered at last. On a 
point between us and the camp was a camp 
site lately abandoned. Pieces of rotten meat 
lay about, and other rubbish not inviting; it 
was not pleasant. There was a windrow of large 
horns, in the velvet, stacked together. I think 
the old meat was left there to attract foxes and 
the like; the trapping season would soon be on. 



236 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

The Indians' ordinary camping places are kept 
clean. 

Four or five Indians were sitting in a little 
dug out, hollow depression on a knoll back of the 
lodges, their faces turned rather away from us 
across the lake. We were within a hundre^' 
yards of them before they noticed us. Then one 
happened to look our way, spoke to the others, 
and all rose, tall against the sky, and descended 
to meet us. We walked forward, our gun empty 
and thrown open. They were the older men. 
Ostinitsu I knew, but not the others. They 
looked surprised to see us there. "Tante mit- 
shiuap.?" O. asked, "Where is your tent.?" I 
explained, and he remembered the spot. Where 
is your canoe? "Mistastin lishtuets." How 
many in the party? "Only the boy," I said, 
looking back at Richard, "but he is a good boy." 
The men looked at each other, spoke a little, and 
seemed at a loss. There was no doubt of their 
surprise at the situation. White men did not 
travel that way. I took the lead. "Can you let 
me have a pair of moccasins? There has been much 
rain, and the country is wet and hard to travel," 
and I turned up my foot to show the holes. O. 
murmured something, but seemed absent. Pre- 
sently we went on to the lodges. Women, mostly 
in cloth dresses, others in deerskins, and children, 
came out and stood about, but nothing much 
developed, and I felt it in the air that they did not 
know precisely what to do with us. To give them 
a chance to talk matters over I thought I would go 
off out of the way, and accordingly started with 
Richard up the long slope of the hill west, saying 
to Ostinitsu, "You know it snowed and blew when 
we were here a year ago, and now I want to get 



GUESTS OF THE CAMP 237 

a picture of the lake while it is good weather," — 
this of course in Indian, — and leaving our gun on a 
rock I asked him to put it inside if it rained, for 
it was a little showery. He nodded vaguely and 
we departed. 

As we approached the camp again an hour 
afterward all the people were standing together 
about a little tree, evidently in council. They 
spread about as we came on. Some of the younger 
men, Nahpayo, Pakuunnoh, and Puckway, whom I 
knew, came and shook hands warmly. O. also 
had turned altogether agreeable, and asked us to 
stay with them. We were glad to accept, and I 
asked him for a canoe to sleep under, also to have 
our things fetched up from the place where we had 
slept.^ He demurred at our sleeping under a canoe, 
pointing to a little cloth tent used to store dried 
nieat in, and urging us to use that, at the same 
time sending a canoe for the baggage, with Richard 
along to find the place. 

My chance had come. I wandered about 
with the camera and made the most of the situa- 
tion. Smiles prevailed everywhere as I went 
about; we were guests of the camp. It must 
have been agreed that we deserved something for 
our walk. The older women did various opera- 
tions on the skins with their different tools, made 
pemmican, went through many acts of their 
routine. They lifted the covering skins from 
whatever I cast my eyes upon, showed me what 
was there and what everything was for. Most of 
their dried meat and other things were piled close 
alongside the lodges, covered with skins. 

Two or three young women, ''buds" of the 
season, were round about without visible duties. 
They watched me with interest at times, or hob- 



238 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

nobbed with the older women over the skins they 
were working, discussing this or that point, per- 
haps the use to which one skin and another was 
best adapted, whether they would best go this 
way or that. A younger girl, the daughter of 
Minowish, one of the best of the older men, cer- 
tainly had eyes, nor were any of those younger 
ones failing in a certain coquettish air. The house- 
wives were pleasantly grave and simple. These 
older women looked hard worked and thin, under 
all their unusual toil upon meat and skins, be- 
sides their household duties. The men appeared 
well fed and easy. The man's work of providing 
game was mere sport as things were. 

The next time I saw these people, in 1910, the 
women were comparatively round faced, and 
looked as if life was going well, while the men were 
trained down and hard conditioned. The deer were 
scattered sparsely over the country, the food 
scaffolds were low, and the hunting men had to be 
always afoot over the country. So it goes, too 
much or too little, one year and another. Whether, 
in this winter of early 1911, the deer still remain 
and all may eat, or the women and children are 
waiting, with small hope, for what the hunters 
may bring, is as it may be. Too often the game 
fails utterly. If still in the country east of the 
George the people should be able, if necessary, 
to force their way to the coast for relief before the 
worst. 

A straight old woman, dressed all in caribou 
skin, came to me and began to explain something 
with great earnestness, but I found it hard to make 
much of what she said. After a time I understood 
that a young man was ill; I was not to go to the 
lodge where he was. The young man, it seemed, 



GUESTS OF THE CAMP 239 

was about the size and age of a certain girl, and 
she pointed to another lodge. I thought little 
of the matter then, so much was going on that was 
distracting. Old Nijwa, the woman who had done 
the talking, asked if I had a bit of tobacco to 
spare, for they all smoke, but I had not at that 
moment. Later I walked toward her lodge with 
a small piece, speaking as I approached. She 
flew to the door, warned me away with extreme 
energy, and pointed to a girl evidently very ill, 
behind in the tent. Then I understood; there 
were two young people ill, a young man and a 
girl. She was so excited that she hardly noticed 
the tobacco. I have often thought of the unusual 
conscience she showed in warning us; too rarely 
is the like to be met with nearer home. 

They had speared no less than twelve or 
fifteen hundred deer in a few weeks. From three 
to five hundred carcasses, skinned and washed out, 
were hauled up on the gravel beach, drying hard 
and black in the sun and the cool September wind. 
There were no flies about them and no smell. 
Later the meat would be stripped off and baled 
away. At first I thought the carcasses had been 
thrown away, but not so; meat I had seen them 
traveling with evidently came from just such 
whole carcasses. The head was always gone — the 
hunter himself must eat it or forfeit his fortune 
in the chase; the rest belongs to the group in com- 
mon. Not all the carcasses were complete, some- 
times a leg or other part was gone. The spec- 
tacle of so many blackened carcasses, more or less 
dismembered, was not pleasing, at any rate not 
to us who had never suffered famine; it was a 
savage feast, alike for Indian, wolf, and raven. 

O. asked me if I had any bread — he probably 



240 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

wanted It for the sick ones. I said no, I was 
getting to be an old man and could not carry much 
across the barrens — there had been plenty of 
caribou for us to travel on; but I handed him some 
of the pea-meal ration. The old man looked at 
me, reached out his long arms, laid his hands upon 
my shoulders and said, "You may be an old 
man, but you would make a great chief trader!" 
They still hoped I would come and trade. I had 
no sense of overfamiliarity on his part. It is re- 
markable how intimate these people can be when 
they care to, without the least offense. It is the 
mark of their quality, perceived by many who 
have known them. Of these long ago was Baron 
Lahontan, who, coming from the most brilliant 
court of Europe to the tribes of the Upper St. Law- 
rence, was able to say, in effect, "As for myself 
I must acknowledge that the manners and person- 
ality of these people are entirely agreeable to me." 
And in a recent day on Maniquagan River came 
the almost unwilling observation of a companion 
from the Anglo-Saxon world, a world which has 
scant grace and unseeing eyes for native races, 
"After all, the natural Indian is a good deal of a 
gentleman." 

A little fire was made outdoors at ten or eleven 
and a large copper kettle went on, filled well up 
with crushed marrowbones. As It boiled Ostlnitsu 
stirred It with a four-foot stick and all the camp 
gathered by. After it had boiled enough O. 
skimmed the grease and a little deer hair off the 
top, brought out an earthen bowl, took up a pint 
and a half of the broth, and offered It to me. It 
was a little tallowy; the under part of the stock 
had evidently been boiled before, but it was not 
bad. I did not get quite enough. 




w 



SPEARING DEER 241 

Richard came back in due time with the bag- 
gage. The party had come upon two deer swim- 
ming the lake. The canoe was run hard upon one, 
which was speared, and then the other, both in the 
back. One of them nearly upset the canoe. 
Richard said the blood spurted as high as the 
gunwale. The deer were left with just enough 
strength to reach the shore, where they fell in the 
edge of the water without being able to get out. 
The Indians took the skins and the best of the meat, 
leaving the rest. 

Richard was hungry enough by this time, for 
it was long since breakfast, and I advised him to 
take his share of the soup, but after looking into 
the kettle he shook his head. Ostinitsu looked 
at him sharply, but said nothing. I had to get 
up some tea and ration for the boy. 

Some of the Indians went up to the lookout 
with us, taking along a little spyglass. Deer were 
visible three or four miles away on the ridges, 
passing west and not coming to the crossing, 
perhaps owing to the wind, which made the lake 
a little rough, and no deer came across that day. 
The glass was not very good, and I could see them 
only when their backs were above the sky line. 

The spear is a sharp-edged, diamond-shaped 
blade of steel, on a slender shaft three or four feet 
long. As soon as the on-coming deer are safely 
away from land the older men from the lookout 
signal the young fellows down at the shore with 
the canoe, and these eager young wolves fairly lift 
their canoe over the water for the prey. A long 
windrow of horns, besides a separate pile of very 
large ones, were close by, and each pair must have 
stood for four or five does and smaller deer killed. 
It is a matter of necessity that the horns are piled 



242 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

together; if they are left about it is understood 
that the deer will scatter when they come through 
the country, and be hard to get. 

After a while, though I was not thinly dressed, 
the cool wind became too much for me, and I 
turned to go down the hill. The people laughed, 
as well they might. Some of the four and five 
year olds were about in perfect comfort, though 
wearing only one scant garment of caribou skin; 
near half their chests and legs were bare. The 
people stand cold as well as Eskimo, but cannot 
keep their working strength as well under star- 
vation. 

Four or five women had gone about sewing 
moccasins, and I hoped that one pair or another 
would turn out to be for me. A pair indeed! 
When the time came they gave them all to me, 
every pair, and smoked tongues and meat until 
we were embarrassed. Luckily I had some half 
dollars for them, which they accepted readily, ex- 
amining the designs upon them with pleased in- 
terest. Most of all they were interested in some 
small photographs of my children. They passed 
them about and talked about them, but I could 
not understand much of what they said. Soon 
Ostinitsu's quiet wife went to her lodge and came 
back with two children of eight or nine. Standing 
by the side of Ostinitsu, the children between us, 
she said simply, "These are our children." She 
knew her jewels. 

So the day wore on. Richard moved about 
contentedly, approved by all. Indians like boys. 
His share of presents was not small. Few had seen 
what we were seeing, perhaps none from the outer 
world of to-day - — the primitive phase in its 
unchanged estate, on this immemorial range of 



INDIAN MANNERS 243 

the caribou. Some things that the people had 
were from white hands, but the essential life was 
the same; the manners, the occupations, the means 
to a livelihood, the ancient belief. 

To me they had the civil deference of bred 
people to a guest. When I pitched away my 
heavy old moccasins with the holes in them, 
which, however, had strong material left in them, 
Pakuunnoh picked them up, brought them to me, 
and asked if he might have them, an exhibition 
of mere manners. He knew I was done with them. 
So with a tin can thrown away at Mistastin one 
year, it was brought to us in the same way. From 
Richard and me, there at Mistinipi, they seemed to 
expect nothing. 

We had meant to stay some time, a week or 
more. But toward the end of the day I had time 
for reflection and the matter of the sickness in 
camp rose to my mind. The trouble was probably 
measles, and I had had it, but the boy's danger 
was serious. With people of his blood measles 
was apt to be as fatal as smallpox. Indeed 
Nahpayo's young wife had suggestive pits in her 
face, hardly healed, and this was another matter. 
Richard's people had said to me, "We think you 
will take care of him," but if he was caught in the 
barrens with measles the result would be almost 
sure. Moreover, north storms were now season- 
able and might bring heavy snow and cold; in 
truth just this thing happened three days after 
we were out of the country. 

I spoke to Ostinitsu, saying I was afraid for 
the boy, and asked him to send us to the head of 
the lake by canoe. He seemed to appreciate my 
situation, and a little later, at a word from him, 
Pakuunnoh and Puckway put In a large rough- 



244 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

water birch and we were off, all four paddling. 
The people of the camp stood upon the bank above 
the line of deer carcasses, a silent group, and waved 
us as we moved away. A stiff little sea was coming 
down the lake. We moved into it like a battle- 
ship, throwing high the spray, but no water came 
in. The spray divided and fell outside in a marvel- 
ous way. I had never seen the like. We made 
fast time, having almost no cargo and strong power. 
They put us off at a little eastern bay near the end, 
where we boiled a last kettle together and shared 
what we had — our pea-meal ration against their 
deer tongues. 

The sun went low. Pakuunnoh pointed at it. 
"Shakashtuet piishum," he said, "The sun is 
setting," then pointed toward their camp. They 
must be going. I nodded and turned to the fire. I 
did not want to see them make the miserable 
averted Naskapi departure, especially after the 
day we had had together, but I heard their pad- 
dles dip away fast and knew they were gone. 

In a little, as I bent over the fire getting up 
more tea, there came a sound fom the lake and 
I looked up. The big canoe was swung broad- 
side, and the two Indians were waving their long 
arms and whooping until the echoes came back. 
For some minutes it lasted. This was the real 
Naskapi good by — to friends. We sprang up and 
waved back, shouting; they turned the canoe, 
went fast down the lake before the wind, and it 
was four years before I saw any face of the tribe 
again. 

In snug, sheltered ground with enough of wood, a 
mile on, we made a sky camp and were off in the gray 
of the morning. I was anxious about the measles. 
In the evening I had singed everything we had 



AN EXPOSED CAMP 245 

taken from the Indians In the fire, by way of 
sterilizing them, but we had ourselves been a good 
deal exposed early in the day. Whether Richard 
was worried I never knew; we did not mention 
the subject on the march. From the way he held 
to the trail from daylight to dark I suspected that 
he was thinking. 

It was well that we cached meat on the out- 
ward trip, for not a deer did we see on the way 
home. There were many tracks, and doubtless 
there were some deer to be seen If we had kept 
our eyes well out, but the newer tracks were all 
leading one way, to the south and west behind us. 
Our pace was good, light as we were, and night 
found us beyond the close hills on the broad 
slopes off Long Pond. A cold wind came from 
north, there was no shelter, and after the shower 
of the day we were long looking for a dry place 
to lie down on. In exposed places such as we 
were In one watches the weather signs anxiously 
before dark, for the nights are long and there Is 
time between night and morning for great changes 
to come on. Now the storms were sudden and cold 
and a foot or more of snow might come over night. 
In the short nights of summer. If the signs are good 
at dark, there Is little chance of a bad change before 
dawn. By the middle of September the situation is 
different, and if a norther should come in the night 
one would almost surely have to drive with it until 
stopped by some lake, or at best come upon some 
boulder or bush to get behind, perhaps for a day or 
two, and without fire. Then would come, if one 
could do It, a wallow of days In snow to the forks, 
without winter clothes and in moccasins like blot- 
ting paper. If the boy should be taken ill during 
such a period his chance would be small. 



246 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Most of one's misgivings are unnecessary, but a 
tremendous storm did come on a few days later, 
and the barrens must have been a wild place for 
seven or eight days. After all, a certain habit 
of considering possibilities serves at least to keep 
one's perceptions keen. 

Our moccasins were stiif with ice when we got 
out in the morning, and we walked away on the 
top of the frozen moss. After the sun came up 
we began to sink through. Our meat at the Black 
Rock was just prime by this time, and we felt 
mere kings by our lunch fire there. We were 
having a royal walk! From there to our last 
meat cache it was wet and stony and boggy, a 
hard walk of hours; though at last, tired but 
cheerful, we walked up to the tree cache. Now 
the bad going was over, now we would have some 
more of that prime meat; for miles we had thought 
of nothing but that particular leg of caribou. 
Instead we had a surprise; not a sign of it was left! 
Our faces would have done to photograph. 

The carcass of the deer was not far away and 
we went over to see what had happened to that. 
Before we got there a large wolf appeared, off 
beyond a brook, trotting briskly toward the car- 
cass. He saw us, and instead of stopping, as most 
animals do, kept on and away with only a look; 
but before disappearing he did stop, at some two 
hundred and twenty yards, and I shot carefully, 
elbows on knees. The broad double muzzle of 
the gun lifted a little, and shut off the view for an 
instant, but I could see the wolf shoot high into 
the air, then gather and go over the crest behind 
him in a wabbling canter. It was bad, bushy 
walking in that direction, so, cross and tired, I 
turned back to the packs without going over. 



DISAPPOINTED TRAVELERS 247 

Later the boy, who had seen clearly, said he was 
sure the beast was hit, as he came down in a ball 
and took time to get up. I ought to have gone 
over there. Anyway, he would steal no more 
meat. 

Crossed in our dream we ill naturedly left the 
place, going on a mile or two before putting the 
kettle on. We had food enough, and indeed the 
pea-meal ration was better to travel on than the 
meat would have been. Mixed with a little hot 
bacon fat in the corner of the frying-pan, and fol- 
lowed by tea, it was the best thing to stand by one 
on a hard road of anything I have ever had. It 
was substantially like the German erbswurst, but 
with dried meat mixed in, a sort of dried meat 
sawdust. Whether dry or cooked, in soup or 
cakes, it was always good, and kept one going. 

Richard and I were acquainted now, and 
talked. On the first of the outer road he had been 
shy, with little to say but "Yessir" and "No 
sir," and had no idea of the way of camp things. 
Now he did all the camp work handily and well. 
An early doubt on my part as to whether he was 
a bit lacking or really a genius had passed away. 
He had imagination and sensitiveness. The cari- 
bou killing we had to do hurt him. Curiously, 
part Eskimo that he was, he liked the Indians. 
At Mistinipi, as we went up the hill with the camera 
to leave them to themselves, he remarked on their 
fine looks — what good manners they had! 
How clean they were in their ways and cooking, 
compared with the Eskimo! He had once been 
out with his father and Eskimo in winter, and 
hated the Eskimo way of killing wounded deer 
with stones, to save cartridges. After we left 
the Indians he again dwelt upon their superiori- 



248 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ties — what fine people they were ! This from 
a shore boy of Eskimo blood, whose life had been 
passed where almost none but Eskimo passed the 
door, was the last testimony one would expect. 

We shared everything, of course. At night 
my oil jacket would go down on the moss, then 
the two blankets, then the tent as a coverlet. 
Close together we slept those frosty nights, under 
the stars and the waving north lights, each of us 
as good as a blanket to the other. Then the fire 
in the early gray, and the quick cooking — there 
was no bread to make. We ate the meat Indian 
fashion without salt. The scrap of bacon gave us all 
we used, and the little bag of salt we had was never 
opened. Until the small supply of hardbread was 
out we both had a tendency to prig it between 
meals, from keen starch hunger. At the last the 
dingy crumbs tasted plainly sweet, a curious fact 
that I have seen noted somewhere since. It looked 
to us as candy does to a child. 

Richard's eyes were a marvel. My own are 
apt to dull a little when walking long with a head- 
strap pack, but he saw everything. All the game, 
without exception, he saw first. He was good, too, 
at keeping his bearings, and once, when we had 
swung in a long semicircle around a hill and were 
going back west, put me to flat discomfiture, the 
worse that I had disagreed with him sharply. It 
was a little time before I perceived that as I was 
taking it the setting sun was exactly in the east. 
Perhaps it was well for Richard's soul that I 
caught him nearly as far wrong a little later. 

We both wanted to walk all night on the day 
of the wolf-looted cache, as it would bring us to 
the canoe by morning. I wonder to this day if 
Richard was thinking of what I was, of being taken 




o 



u 



Q 



<: 
O 



A BERRY BEAR 249 

down with the Indian sickness. But the ground 
became rough and hilly at dark, we could not see 
our feet, and a cold breeze and a snow squall kept 
us hugged close under some lucky little bushes 
where we had had supper. It was very bleak and 
barren along there. 

The hills were white for an hour in the morning. 
Before long we crossed a commanding ridge from 
which the walls of the wind-lake portal, many miles 
away, opened high and imposing. About nine 
R. spotted a bear a mile away plain against the 
white moss. I was disposed to let him go, as he 
was off our course, but Richard was eager and we 
turned that way. Some bushes gave an approach. 
It was a large he-animal, nosing the flat blueberry 
vines on a smooth level. I fired at near a hundred 
yards, when he leaped and ran fast for some little 
trees, among which we found him dead. They are 
slow to skin, like a beaver; there is no end of knife- 
work. It took a good while, for the bear was large, 
but there was no fat to mess up with — this year 
there were no mice for the bears, and the meat was 
lean, tender, and sweet. A berry bear Is the 
thing. When at last I straightened up from the 
long job of skinning, there, not three hundred 
yards away, were two other bears, one a large cub. 
My films were just out, to my sorrow, for there were 
bushes near the bears and we could have gone 
close. We waved our caps and shouted, and the 
show vanished In a twinkling. 

The skin and meat we had taken were heavy, 
and by the time we made the canoe, about one 
o'clock, we were well warmed up. The wind lake 
let us by rather decently, but once in the river a 
raw sea wind came up the valley with a chill 
which went through us, unused as we were to sit- 



250 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

ting still, and we camped about dark under a 
wooded point not far below the lake. The shel- 
tered place seemed like a tavern with cheer, after 
the naked barrens. A fine driftwood fire blazed 
long after we were asleep. 

Now came a little personal experience. In the 
night I awoke uncomfortable and found myself 
broken out on the body just as Ostinitsu had de- 
scribed the sick young man to be. Some fever 
went with the great irritation, and I began to 
speculate on what was coming. I had had mea- 
sles, and ought to be immune, but remembered 
the pits on the face of Napao's wife. Who, on 
the coast, could be expected to take care of a 
smallpox stranger .f* It would be almost certain 
death to any native to do it. For an hour or two 
I thought very hard. Plans of getting in some 
way to Dr. Grenfell's hospital at Indian Harbor, 
some four hundred miles away, would not work 
out. I had thought that at one time or another 
I had considered about all the things that could 
well happen to one knocking about in this way — 
accident, starvation, freezing, drowning, or or- 
dinary illness, but here was a new idea. I was 
never, I believe, more inclined to call myself 
names for wandering about at all in such places. 
It was an unpleasant situation. 

At last I remembered some old bouts I had had 
with hives, heat rash, in hot weather, and that 
alkali was the thing. It would ease the impossible 
itching, whatever the cause. There was a piece 
of old castile soap in my kit, the nearest alkaline 
thing available. It remains to be said that before 
this remedy my cause of woe faded readily away. 
Still the circumstance was not a dream, for before 
I left the coast the nuisance came on more than 



OUT TO THE SHORE 251 

once, with fever, and again shook my faith a little; 
perhaps it was really not so uninteresting a matter 
as hives. The immediate cause on the river was 
doubtless the unusual perspiration from carrying 
the heavy unfleshed bearskin with head and feet 
attached, in addition to my pack. 

Ah-pe-wat, the young man at Mistinipi, died 
of his illness, as did the girl. It was said afterward 
that some of old Edward's tribe had carried up 
measles to the Indians from the shore. 

The next day, the 13th of September, was our 
last day out. Passing through the great pools 
there were trout everywhere even at that late 
date; a little farther down some geese cheered us 
with their talk and presence, and a good many seal 
heads showed below the falls. One of the seals 
came very near, almost under the boat, near our 
tea place at my old roost of July. Richard shot 
at it with his forty-four, now taken out of cache 
along the river, but missed. It is a curious thing 
that with all his experience on water he was if 
anything a little less steady on it than I. His 
father had said when we started, "He will do well 
on the water, I am sure of that, but you may be 
too much for him walking." Not so. He was 
uneasy as we ran the slight rapids of the river 
coming down, and curiously enough, I saw all the 
water game first, up river and outside. He was, 
of course, perfectly easy on the large inlet where 
he was at home, though not remarkable. But on 
the land he was for his age a wonder of endurance, 
courage, and all the silent qualities that take one 
over the barrens unstarved, and make for the joy 
of the trail. 

At just sunset we cleared Assiwaban Point. Tide 
and wind were wrong as far as the low point of 



252 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

Long Island, where a stout clangor of geese saluted 
us in the dark, and the metallic rush of beds of un- 
seen ducks sounded again and again to the front. 
At ten we called out to the sleeping Winters. 
They had not been worried; that morning for the 
first time the mother had remarked that we might 
be looked for now. But I was thankful, on the 
whole, to hand their boy over without harm, as 
thankful as I had been for having him. The little 
bread upon the waters, sowed in carelessness when 
E, had had his trifles to sell two years before, and 
without which I fancy he would not have thought 
of offering me his son, had certainly come back 
to me. The trip was not long, scarcely two hun- 
dred and fifty miles as we had traveled, nor had 
there been any hardships, but considering all, — 
the season, the ordinary chances of the way, and 
the little plot in the Indian matter, things might 
not have gone so well. 

It was now a run for the steamer and home. 
It ought to have taken a fortnight or so. What 
it did take was forty-two days — six weeks. 
Apropos is the remark of an old fisherman at 
House Harbor, the evening before Q. and I caught 
the Virginia there, in 1905. A few men from 
schooners about were gathered in Voisey's little 
house by the stove, and some one remarked that 
Skipper So and So had got his cargo of fish, — 
a "voyage of fish," as they say, — and was starting 
for home. Fish were scarce that year and the 
skipper's good fortune was generally conceded, if 
not envied. Then an old fisherman spoke in: 
"Yes, he's got his voyage; but he's not clear of the 
Labrador yet." Nor did any demur at the im- 
plication. It is a coast of uncertainties. 




PUCKWAY 



WINDBOUND AT UN'SEKAT 253 

Winter's fish were "out of salt," and had to be 
taken care of without much delay. He would 
sail me for a day or two, however, and he and 
Richard and I started the 14th, after only a night 
at the house. We worked our way in a calm only 
to Un'sekat, that day, twelve miles, there to be 
windbound two days by a northwester. The 
house was unoccupied and wood scarce, but it was 
a comfortable period and I was glad to have rest. 
The bear skull came in for a cleaning and W. 
scraped the skin and staked it out. In the night 
some white foxes came nosing about and we had 
to cover the skin. The foxes would hardly go 
away from the light when we opened the door. 
They are tame, innocent things compared with 
other foxes. 

W. talked about his letting the boy go with me, 
a notable thing considering the coast feeling about 
the interior. He had always heard of me as a 
"kind man." If we had been gone over two weeks 
they might have feared lest something had hap- 
pened to me, "so as to leave the boy uncared for." 
Without accident to me they "felt sure the boy 
would be safe" — they were trusting enough! 

By five the second day we parted, he for the 
north and I south by canoe. I meant to camp 
about seven miles on in a little rock-walled am- 
phitheater open to the south, where there were 
Eskimo circles, and a little wood and water; 
it was a favorite place of mine. There I did stop 
and boiled a kettle. The weather signs were 
peculiar; with the letting down of the north- 
wester it became warm, a faint air from south 
occasionally stirred the surface and quite a few 
stars showed through overhead. It seemed as 
though the thin overhead scurf might thicken 



254 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

and bring a little warm rain and south wind, but 
nothing more. But the peculiar feature was 
in the northeast. Behind level gray clouds 
showed a long background of an unusual pale 
salmon color. In the northwest it would have 
stood for bright weather at least, the color was well 
enough, but there seemed something not quite 
usual about it, and the clouds of the sunset quarter 
had remained gray. Still it seemed better to be 
going along in the warm, calm night than to be 
bounding about on a northwester, perhaps, next 
day. Not much good weather could be expected 
now, and what there was ought to be made the 
most of. So, well satisfied with the opportunity 
and my own diagnosis of things, I put out after 
supper on the ten-mile stretch to Tom Geer's. It 
was easy going, the oars worked well and silently. 
A wonderful phosphorescence appeared with any 
stirring of the water. I have hardly seen the like. 
The whirls from the oars were very bright. If I 
had only known it here was one of the weather 
signs, as I knew later, of old John Lane, who 
used to say, "When the water burns look out for 
wind!" 

Four or five miles on was a low, black point. 
I headed for it when near, with seemingly a third 
of a mile to go, pulling complacently along at 
a good rate and taking a sort of pride in the fire- 
works I was making in the water. The eddies from 
the oars were wonderfully bright, but faded fast. 
"A blaze, a nebula, a mist," I was repeating to 
myself at each stroke — things go in rhythm when 
one is rowing alone. All at once there was a bang 
and I was on my back in the bottom of the canoe. 
I had rowed full speed into a square-faced rock 
and bounded back. I put my hand down instantly 



CAUGHT BY A NORTHER 255 

for water, thinking the bow must be shattered. 
None came, nor did later, though I tried for it 
now and then. Not the least damage was done. 
But one needs a bow-facing gear by night; there 
is no judging distances then. 

By the time I reached Geer's, about midnight, 
the sky had thickened and it was very dark. 
I did rather well to find the house, weathered 
white though it was. No one was there and I 
hesitated to break the lock — foolishly, for it was 
now sure to rain soon. I was sleepy, my mind was 
only half working; anyway, I started along and 
edged around the shore for Daniel's Rattle. There 
are several little irregular bays along, and not 
liking to get into the wide outside run among the 
islands I worked slowly around all these bays, in 
and out, so as not to miss the inside passage. 
There is a certain comfort in being on the main- 
land if one is driven upon shore. If I could have 
gone straight along past the little bays it would 
have taken much less time, but in such darkness 
there was no doing anything by landmarks. It 
was so dark that at the very oar's end I could not 
see the little white breakers against the boulders 
without straining my eyes. 

Somewhere about two o'clock big drops began 
to fall and the wind struck like a club from north. 
The night's work was over. Luckily I came in a 
few minutes to a little rocky nook sheltering 
enough level moss ground for the canoe. There 
was just room between the boulders to get 
through to a most providential landing place. 
The rock shore had been steep, broken, and sharp 
edged for some distance. Under foot on the beach 
some white driftwood was visible; the first thing 
was to put three six-foot sticks up under the canoe 



256 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

before they were soaked, for some time there 
would need to be a fire, then I took care of the gun 
and baggage, I lay on a cross bar of the canoe, 
to keep it down, and, wrapped in blanket, bear- 
skin, and tent, got on fairly until morning. The 
rain blew under and things became pretty damp 
as the hours went on. At daylight it began to snow 
hard. It was a great storm. Twenty-six schooners 
along southward went down that night or were 
wrecked on the shore. Others than myself had not 
read rightly that salmon band. 

There was no having a fire; the place, though 
somewhat sheltered, was still too much exposed 
to the wind. Something had to be done, the damp 
and cold were creeping in. The air was just at 
freezing, the snow neither melting nor stiffening. 
On a ridge in sight were some trees and I made a 
sortie, but there was no dry wood there; the 
wind was strong, the long moss full of water. 
Back I went soon with a run; neither hands nor 
feet would stand the wet cold. Deerskin mocca- 
sins are as blotting paper. Diving under the bear- 
skin I stayed a few hours more, eating cold ration 
and wondering if it was to be a three-day blow. If 
so, I could not hold out there, and without the 
bearskin I should have been damaged as it was. 
Somewhere about one o'clock, I thought, the snow 
let up, and I got a little fire started under a tiny 
bush growing against a rock, in a little sort of hen's 
nest there. Soon there was a good fire going and 
I was steaming before it. The F. S. H. match- 
box and the dry sticks had stood by, and the fire 
went with the first match. 

Daniel Noah's winter house was not more than 
two miles away, and though there was not much 
chance of his being there, a house, after all, is a 




A MisTixiPi Bearskin 




Fleshing a Deerskin with Double Leg Bone of a Deer 



A HARD NIGHT 257 

house. It was still raining and blowing, but I 
could get about. In fully exposed places the wind 
was too strong to stand up in, so avoiding the 
open shore, struck off back through the woods, 
taking blanket, eatables, and axe. Two swamps 
took me well to my waist and over my matchbox. 
Of course, as the luck was going, there was no 
one at Daniel's, nor was the house itself much of a 
find. The windows were partly out, the roof 
dripped all over, wood was scarce, the old oven 
stove had holes in it. These last I patched with 
tin cans. An hour's steady firing and the miser- 
able thing was scarcely warm, and I was chattering 
and wishing too late that I was back with the drift- 
wood pile and bearskin. Things looked bad, with 
another shivering night on. I was overtrained 
from the inland trip and hadn't much internal 
heat. To my surprise, however, after a second 
hour of firing the old stove glowed well, and I 
smoked a pipe after supper in comfort. There 
was a two by six dry spot in front of the stove, the 
only one about — the Noahs had to have one place 
to stand, I suppose. There I put down the blanket 
and as soon as my head was down went off like 
a trap, dead to all things. In an hour I waked; the 
fire was out and my bones were fairly knocking 
together. One blanket at freezing, with wind 
blowing through the house, is not overmuch. 
This went on through the night, which was a good 
bit more wearing than the night before. 

The wind let down somewhat by two. In the 
evening it had been stronger than ever, a tre- 
mendous blow. The house itself was somewhat 
sheltered, but the wild racing of the water parallel 
with the shore in front was remarkable to hear. 
Getting back through the swamps in the morning 



258 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

was sloppy work. I was pretty sure the canoe 
would have been blown away by the strong wind 
of the evening and involuntarily balked and stood 
still just before the place came in sight; then with 
an effort kicked myself along. It was all right, 
and the sight was decidedly a lift. I tumbled down 
the steep moss slope, slammed the canoe into the 
water, and hobbled off around the point. There 
was wind still, but not half what had been, and 
with a little cockade of a spruce tree in the bow 
for a head sail, to prevent yawihg, I blew off down 
to Davis Inlet at a good pace. I had been laid 
up there thirty hours, with some wear, and but 
for the bearskin would have found it hard to get 
along at all the first night and morning. There 
is a moral about salmon streaks in the northeast 
and another as to summer clothes for freezing 
gales. The next year at Hopedale I saw that 
northeast salmon streak, mentioned it, and 
gained prestige when a norther came on, as it 
did. 

Getting down to Davis Inlet the wider waters 
were lively. Squalls ran out from the points until 
I imagined being translated bodily, and flakes of 
snow were blowing about. The bearskin made a 
good lap robe, tucked well up. There was some- 
thing of an audience on the wharf, David Edmunds 
and Poy among them, the best hunters. When 
they asked questions I told them I started from 
Un'sekat two nights ago, and tried to appear 
jaunty. But they saw the joke. Rather gravely, 
however, they took it. The ancient powers had 
been abroad those nights. Nor were the days 
just to their liking. David and Poy especially, 
lords of the open, knew the way of snow north- 
easters, and when they carried up the little canoe 



HOME PLACES 259 

from the beach they handled her with a certain 
regard, as for a horse that had made a good run. 

The next two days I sat in the house, glad to 
be there. Then Guy came back from Lane's 
Bay with the Hudson's Bay Company schooner, 
which had been well mauled in the blow. Mean- 
while the mailboat came to Fanny's and went 
back south without me. Even if I had tried to 
keep on I doubt my catching her; for the weather 
continued too bad for small boat travel until after 
she had gone. 

The end of a trip needs little elaboration. A 
schooner came up the run and would take me to 
Fanny's. It was curious, when the three big, 
high-booted Newfoundlanders climbed out on the 
end of the post wharf, to see their worry about the 
dogs. They paused, eyed the dogs on the shore, 
got behind each other and argued as to who should 
go first. The dogs seemed quite in the humor 
of the situation. After all, a row of interested 
Eskimo dogs can be suggestive. The Newfound- 
landers' own dogs, a wellnigh vanished breed now, 
are wonderfully like themselves, mild, strong, 
enduring, a water breed courageous. 

Spracklin's fish had been washed, dried on his 
smooth rocks, and stowed aboard. For a week or 
two I wandered the island, somewhat with an eye 
for hares, which had, however, been well picked 
up by the foxes. One day, without gun or camera, 
I came close upon an Arctic fox, snow-white and 
ready for winter; he danced and postured long 
before his final departure. 

In calm afternoons geese dropped into the 
little ponds of the level tundra. I saw a line of 
them winging in low one day, and threw myself 



260 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

flat in a sag while they came down two hundred 
and fifty yards away. One of them assumed 
guard, while the others fed busily in the shallow 
pool. When the sentinel saw a flick as I turned 
over he spoke, a low quonk. Another took place 
beside him, and the two stood immovable, in 
double watch. The others splashed and reached 
under without reserve, but the two remained 
unrelaxed, statues in gray, to the end. There was 
no getting nearer, and I fired a little over. 

Snow buntings were blowing about the rocks 
everywhere, the horned larks were gone, next 
would be snow and winter; the tremendous sea 
gales would sweep the island. On the hills of the 
mainland, to stay until spring, was snow from the 
great storm. The days were mild though cool. 
I knew they were the last free days in the North 
that I should ever have. 

The gray old island, with its ice-cap smoothed 
hills, is the very emblem of the unchanging and 
immovable. The sea bellows in vain upon its 
outer shores, against stern walls, into spouting 
fissures and caves, washing high and recoiling 
low, heaving betimes its tremendous ice — and the 
granite gives no sign. Yet where shall be found 
the enduring? These granite hills, even, are not 
at rest, although the eye might choose this, if 
earth held the unchanging, as the place to endure 
to the end. The whole region is rising. One 
steps or climbs across fissures that are fresh to the 
eye. Above, about the slopes of the hills, are 
pebbled beach lines where once was the sea. The 
weight of the old ice-cap, it may be, bore down the 
granite into the plastic mass of the planet. Slowly 
the hills are returning to their height, rising cen- 
tury by century from the dank sea depths. When 




NlJWA, DRESSED WHOLLY IN CaRIBOU SkINS 



FAREWELL DAYS 261 

the Norsemen came cod wandered the kelp 
where now the Irok blooms and the mitten flower 
bends in the wind. Another day the islands may 
again be hills, the sea passages valleys, with their 
lakes and streams; and again, in geologic time, 
may the ice-cap return, and the sea. 

But through my waiting days the Cape island 
lay untroubled in the autumn sunshine, a place 
where all was peace, where feet might saunter 
and mind might drift in the ways of their will. 
Ah, the sweetening air of that long pause before 
the storms of fall! For the last time these hills! 
We were gathering to go, the birds and L But 
now peace, the sun-warmed moss, and the creatures 
that were. It was a time of reckoning for me, the 
turning over of what had been in my Labrador 
years, the stringing of beads that should always a 
little shine. Some of these had seemed clouded in 
the gathering, but in the reverie of those final days 
they were lighted all. Though never the world 
again were young, there had been days. Coast 
and inland — inland and coast. The early hard 
days on the mainland, the hills and valleys alone, 
the calm of the noble bays; their silence, broken 
only by the rise of wings; Tuh-pungiuk and 
Un'sekat and Opetik; and the strong opposing 
sea. The rolling barrens, the hills of the height 
of land. The tall, grave people there, the smiling 
strong ones here; the aurora and the bergs and the 
innumerable insect foe. Long days and twilight 
nights, dark nights and stormy days; the sunshine 
on the sea and the white-backed eiders' charge. 

So my string was strung. Always for me now 
would return the gray barrens, stretching far and 
on, always the lakes and the lodge-smokes on their 
shores. Always would the people watch the deer, 



262 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

always stand silent at the shore, as friends would 
wave as they go; the land be ever theirs. The 
light that has been never quite fails the wilderness 
traveler; his feet may remain afar, but his mind 
returns 

Where the caribou are standing 

On the gilded hills of morning. 

Where the white moss meets the^footstep 

And the way is long before. 



Chapter IX 
1910 

TO take one to a far country, year in and 
out, even though its people are well 
worth while, something of a mission is 
needed, an objective, and with its attainment the 
light which has led is apt to pale. With the passing 
of 1906 I felt that my shaft in the North had 
been shot, and so it proved. Revisiting, indeed, 
followed in 1907 and 1908, but only to the coast 
and nearer Assiwaban. From 1906 my days were 
bound. One trip which followed, and worth men- 
tioning, though its days were not as the old days, 
had, after all, a motive, mainly geographical. 

Through the years from 1905 to 1910 I had 
always thought I should like to work out the 
remaining part of the Indian route to the George, 
from Mistinipi on. Having done all the knocking 
about the country I had, it seemed a good finish 
to put on the map the whole route to Indian House 
Lake, the more so that it was doubtless the most 
feasible way into the interior anywhere from 
Hamilton Inlet up the whole Atlantic coast. 
After Mrs. Hubbard's journey down the George, 
in 1905, the idea strengthened a little with me, 
as her survey for latitudes afforded a convenient 
check line to connect with. In truth, as the In- 
dian route was said to swing to the northwest 
from Mistinipi narrows, I could not see, from the 
compass work I had already done, how we could 
well agree in our positions. It seemed as if her 
mapping of Indian House Lake would turn out 

263 



264 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

a little too far south; but it is only fair to her to 
say that the course of the Indian route continued 
more nearly west than I had reason to suppose, 
and my compass courses, which I finally did carry 
through in 1910, mapped out in remarkable 
agreement with Mrs. Hubbard's work. 

As elsewhere told, I had visited Mistinipi 
narrows, for the second time, in 1906, and on that 
occasion photographed the lake from a headland 
on the north side where the broad lake opens out, 
and which commands the lake well to the west end 
near the outlet. At that time the northward 
migration of the caribou was on, and Ostinitsu 
and his band, to the number of about twenty-five 
all told, were spearing the deer at the east end of 
the narrows. The beach was strewn with car- 
casses, and the deer were still coming. 

An interval of four years had passed, when 
on the 4th of August, 1910, our party of four 
reached Mistinipi, camping on a well shut-off little 
bay on the north side, a mile or two from the east 
end of the lake. We had only one canoe for the 
four of us, two of the party walking the shores, 
and the other two navigating with the baggage. 

The plan worked well on the whole, with some in- 
conveniences, the arrangement lightening the port- 
age work, and enabling very complete observations 
of the country by the foot party, which went over 
the hills and was able to see a good deal of the coun- 
try and whatever signs there were of game and In- 
dians. In all such travel, by the way, it is the man 
who goes afoot who really knows the country, rather 
than the one who goes by canoe. The party was 
made up of Scoville Clark, with whom the trip 
was planned, and George P. Howe and D. G. 
McMillan, who fell in by invitation on the way. 




A Food Scaffold 




Crushed Marrowbones from perhaps a Thousand Deer 



MISTINIPI DEER CROSSING 265 

The old deer crossing at the narrows showed 
still a lot of bleached horns, but the long windrow 
at the first camp of 1906, a little southward, had 
disappeared — of course into the lake. This dis- 
posal counts as an offering to the powers that rule 
the chase; without some such observance the 
surviving deer will be offended and avoid the hunt- 
ers. Why the horns at the second camp were not 
likewise put into the lake I am not quite sure; 
probably because the people were there so long a 
time that the spirits animating the horns had de- 
parted from them, after which eventuality they 
need not be held in respect. A long stay of the 
Indians almost surely occurred, for in 1906 they 
had a year's meat laid in when I left them, and 
would not have their usual motive for moving, 
that of following the deer, until at least the next 
summer. 

A strong deadfall had been built, probably for 
wolverenes, foxes, and the like, possibly for wolves 
too. A great lot of broken up marrowbones had 
accumulated; they had been boiled and reboiled. 
What we saw may have represented the leg bones 
of a thousand deer. This of itself would show 
that the camp had been kept there a very long 
time. 

We followed the northern shore of the lake. 
There are three deep bays on that side leading 
toward passes in the hills east. In the second 
or third of these was even the standing poles of 
a winter lodge, as if used for cross-country travel 
in the direction of Davis Inlet. The winter route 
to that place is much shorter than the summer one. 

A good many deer had summered over the 
country, though in a scattered way, but most 
of them had recently moved north. Hunting with 



266 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

the rifle among the hills had gone on at some time 
a year or two back, probably in 1907, and skulls 
and parts of skulls with horns attached were rather 
frequent beyond the narrows. Some of the horns 
were fine specimens, but all had been killed in the 
velvet, were now weathered white and porous, and 
were as light as cork. There were a few bear and 
wolf tracks in the paths, not many, and the bears 
were small. 

The second day on Mistinipi McMillan and 
I, circling far inland to flank the deep bays, missed 
the canoe and walked by it. The next thing we 
came to, as luck would have it, was a chain of 
impassable ponds running inland several miles, and 
these we had to go around, in one of the hottest days 
and the worst for flies that I remember that year. 
We had no luncheon beyond a mouthful, and I, 
having footed it from the high portage nearly to 
the foot of Mistinipi without any boating, at the 
same time making my portages with the others, 
had more than enough of it. Coming out on a 
point about the middle of the afternoon we made a 
strong smoke, putting on much moss, and before 
long saw the canoe break around a point two or 
three miles behind and come on fast for the smoke. 
Curiously, just before the canoe really did appear 
I was perfectly sure I saw it in another place. It 
was some deer swimming along a far-away shore. 

The moral of the episode is first that one ought 
never to separate from the commissary without 
at least two rations in hand, and some fishing 
tackle — a hook and line at least. We had a gun 
but very few cartridges, and if really lost from the 
canoe party might have been a day or two without 
anything to eat. We did have matches. Another 
thing to remember is that if two parties are to 



ON MISTINIPI 267 

meet on unknown ground it may become important 
for one or the other, on arriving, to put up a signal 
visible from far. In this case we walkers were 
thrown back into the country two miles by deep, 
narrow bays, and though the canoe stopped 
at an old lodge which was visible enough to us at 
luncheon time, and the other men were lying in- 
side it, even McM.'s good eyes could not detect 
anything more than the white standing poles. 
If a tent or white blanket had been spread upon 
the poles we could have seen it in the sunshine 
five or six miles away. 

As it was we came rather near going through 
the experience of getting a raft together in a bad 
place for timber, with no axe, to get across the 
ponds. The most feasible way to do it was to 
adopt McM.'s suggestion of tying the raft together 
with our underclothes, a daunting proposition, 
for such were the flies that we could hardly get 
along with all our clothes on. 

Toward evening — this was the 6th — we came 
to a long chain of lakes leading northeast from the 
main lake; they had to be crossed and all got 
into the canoe at once. It brought the weight up 
to about nine hundred pounds, and this in a fifty- 
six-pound canoe, only fifteen feet long. If the 
ratio of weight of vehicle to cargo was ever brought 
lower I should like to know where. 

There was some question where to look for the 
portage route at the end of the lake. My Indian 
maps of 1905 and 1906 were out of reach when I 
left^ home, and I could only remember that by 
various Indian accounts the route swung somewhat 
toward the north, and I had some doubt lest the 
chain of lakes referred to was the route. We 
talked it over and decided to look along the main 



268 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

lake for the outlet anyway. This proved right, 
and a short portage led to more lakes stretching 
off west; these were evidently our nearest way to 
the George, whether the Indians went that way 
or not. There were, however, a good many In- 
dian signs, poles, etc., — " Metukuf" in the vernacu- 
lar, about the outlet. 

The outlet is a smart rapid which we did not 
try to run. At the shore we were met by the most 
suffocating cloud of black flies I have ever seen. 
Eyes and nose were instantly full, and we had to 
make a smoke in as few seconds as possible. One 
can really work a good deal of actual destruction 
on flies of either kind by keeping a smart fire going. 
So it had been that day earlier when Howe and I 
made a mere wisp of a fire on a rock while waiting 
for the canoe to bring up my camera, left a mile 
behind. The water around the rock was calm, 
and we could see the singed mosquitoes as they 
floated. In about half an hour they looked to 
count at least ten thousand, and there were 
visibly fewer about. Again, the day before this, 
I sat waiting some twenty minutes for McM. to 
return from hunting up some other left-behind 
thing, and amused myself killing off what mos- 
quitoes I could as they lit on my hands and 
trousers, and by the time I was done they were 
quite thinned out. Still I was batting pretty fast 
for awhile. They will shower into a broad, hot 
fire after dark, like a snowstorm when very thick. 
Heat is worse for them than smoke; one can lie 
close up to a wide, thin fire and be let alone. In 
a very hot sun they are noticeably inert. 

This camp, at the foot of the short rapid, was 
on a smooth, velvety piece of ground, in no way 
suggestive of flies, but the place became referred 



?,% * 




At Davis Inlet 



r^- 




A Dead Fall, Mistinipi, 1910 



MOSQUITO POINT 269 

to always afterward as Mosquito Point. There 
was some swale ground just beyond which may 
have accounted for the trouble. Other camps 
came to have names that were never bestowed as 
such; one was the "Windy" camp, another the 
"Comfort" camp, but the names began as com- 
mon adjectives; we never set out to name anything. 

McM. caught a good namaycush on the fly In 
the eddy, and shot an old herring gull very hand- 
somely next morning, across the river; it went 
Into the kettle. When the morning came I begged 
for a Sunday, a day off, for I had had more walk- 
ing than the others, and we proceeded to take it 
easy, though the calm, beautiful morning was too 
good to waste. H. and I went up a symmetrical, 
smooth hill northeast, and took observations. 
It looked eight or ten miles west a little north to the 
end of the second lake, the last one visible, and 
that was evidently our best course to the George. 
While we were about camp a tremendous wolf 
came to the shore across, looking as large as a mod- 
erate caribou. We were not sure for a moment 
but he was a caribou. He passed without hesi- 
tation into the strong water and swam toward us 
with head high. When forty or fifty yards away 
some one must have moved — we were somewhat 
conspicuous from being above and on the sky 
line — for he turned and swam back. Reaching 
shore he paused not an instant, but took to a lope 
and disappeared. In the water he showed a 
grand, massive head and back, and swam with 
power. 

By luncheon time H., who had not walked 
much for three days, became uneasy to be off, 
and my good resolves to be prudent yielded. We 
made a small lake and a large one before camping, 



270 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

all four in the boat, and so disposed continued 
for a week or two, though low in the water and 
crowded, until we were back at the high portage, 
where our other canoe was. The country became 
flat and less interesting to the west, and the lakes, 
called by the Indians Kanekautsh, meaning proba- 
bly Sand Lake, or something of the sort, are shal- 
low. The lakes are rather stony than sandy, how- 
ever, save for a point where the lodges were gen- 
erally placed. There were many sets of standing 
poles. By midday, the 8th, the three lakes were 
behind. 

At the end of the last one we met a party of 
twenty Indians, most of whom I knew, going 
to the coast from Tshinutivish. They were 
Ostinitsu, Minowish, Puckway, my old but doubt- 
ful friend, young Edward, of 1906 history, and 
three or four women and girls. They met us with 
great civility, but we had little to entertain them 
with, tobacco or tea, and I think they were dis- 
appointed. At the post we had been told that 
they were all near the coast, and we had taken 
nothing for them. Off they went, in an hour or 
so, we going the other way on foot with a man and 
boy who were returning to Tshinutivish, six or 
seven miles northwesterly. Our guide was not 
enthusiastic about our going along, though as a 
matter of course we would naturally go by his 
place when we moved camp. But as the river was 
hard to travel, having, as various Indians explained, 
many rapids, we decided merely to make an after- 
noon walk to Tshinutivish and back and then return 
to the coast. 

Our guide took us a mile west to a rocky hill 
promontory and pointed out Tshinutivish Hill, 
still some miles away. The word means Little- 



TSHINUTIVISH 271 

Long-Brain, and has a fair basis of resemblance. 
When the man started oif I told him we would go 
too. He took it well enough, but the walk was a 
ludicrous affair. Our Indian, I imagine, took his 
course with the idea of looking for game on his 
way, or perhaps it was his sense of humor that 
inspired him; at any rate, he led through more 
swamps and over more bad ground generally than 
we had seen for a long time. He had given me, 
for one, a pretty sharp walk to the lookout hill, 
though I kept up well that far. Now, with his 
long legs, he made a spectacle of all of us in the 
swamps and bushes. H., very near sighted, had 
broken his only pair of glasses, and wearing a net 
too, could not see the ground, and was soon out of 
sight behind. We were in a long procession. Now 
and then I called to the man not to hurry, that 
the doctor could not see; then he would smile 
gently and pause a little. He stepped slowly 
with his thin legs and without effort, but at no 
time were we really in the running at all. The 
young boy had no trouble keeping up, but circled 
about like a puppy. Showers came, one long and 
effective, and we were wet and done up by the 
time we got to the river. We were loaded, all, 
into a fine canvas canoe, myself distinguished by 
being permitted one of the two paddles, and were 
soon across the Tshinutivlsh estuary. 

Several persons came down from the lodges, one 
a barefooted man of some presence, in red leggings. 
Of course my Indian words failed, as they gene- 
rally do with Naskapi I have not talked with before. 
I tried to say we wanted to sleep there. The word 
was right enough, nipan it is in at least three 
kindred dialects, but here it looked as if it meant 
not to sleep, but to get married. There was a 



272 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

roar from the men, and disturbance, with some 
scattering, among the women. A little knowledge 
is a dangerous thing. 

Most of the people drifted back to the lodges. 
We were wet and getting cold. Finally I got at 
the older man, explained that we could not go back 
that night and wanted shelter. He pointed to his 
lodge and said we could go there. Presently we 
went in. It was a matter of course, anyway, I 
imagine. The lodge was large, of near fifty poles, 
with seven or eight persons inside, mostly women 
and children. It would have held twenty persons, 
I should say, sleeping as they do, like spokes of a 
wheel, with feet to the fire in the middle. One side 
of the tent was given to us visitors. We took off 
more or less of our wet things and hung them to 
dry. 

Presently a white cloth went down in front of us, 
the size of a towel, and a few ordinary glazed ware 
dishes, followed in time by some extremely good 
boiled whitefish. Dried caribou meat, equally 
good, was handed about, and tea. After some 
rummaging a little salt was found, a thimbleful 
or two; they do not eat it themselves as a habit. 
Our host tried to talk, but I could not make much 
of it and he gave up disgusted. He was mainly 
concerned about the Mistukushu, the deer mi- 
gration. Had we seen it? I was sorry to have to 
tell him not, that the deer were scattered and not 
very many. 

Their outlook for the winter seemed bad; their 
scaffolds were low. All the men looked hard 
worked, the women, on the other hand, fuller 
than when I saw them at Mistinipi in 1906. So 
it goes, one side of the house or the other is always 
having the worst of it. In 1906 the men were fat 




TSHINUTIVISH 



A NIGHT IN A NASKAPI LODGE 273 

and the women thin and overworked upon the 
abundant and easily got meat and skins of the 
Misttikushu. 

After supper the neighbors came in, mostly 
women whose men had gone to the shore. My 
old acquaintances of 1906, every one, brought 
presents of meat and skins and moccasins, nor had 
they lost their pleasing manners I remembered. 
We could only thank them then, having brought 
nothing from our camp. 

What went on in the course of the evening 
brought to us as real a phase of the primitive life 
as I had seen. While we were eating the people 
roasted whitelish over the fire, the children in 
particular chewed the dried meat. There was no 
vegetable food; whitefish and dried deer meat were 
all. 

We were given skins and blankets for the night. 
The puckered deerskins of the lodge dripped a 
little as it came on to rain, and I had to wriggle 
about for a dry place. Some one kept a little fire, 
putting on wood when necessary, and we were 
wholly comfortable. Breakfast was of dried meat 
boiled. By the time it was done with the sun 
came out and we wandered about the place. 

Howe particularly pleased the old women, 
though nothing could be said between them. Mc- 
Millan, with his gift for boys, had his following of 
them there as at home, Clark wandered at large,, 
and helped me change films. On my part, I used 
the camera as best I could. The tension of the 
time, with forty Naskapi about, was plain upon 
most of our unaccustomed party; I felt it myself, 
and after I was pretty well around with the kodak, 
one of my friends, and of great Eskimo experience 
at that, came to me and said with growing in ten- 



274 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

sity, "Now we've stayed over night and we've 
seen everything, you've got your photographs — 
let's got'' 

I photographed one quiet, oldish man, using 
my spectacles to see the focusing scale with. He 
reached out apologetically for them and tried 
them on the cloth of my sleeve. His face bright- 
ened to see so well, and he handed them back a 
little wistfully. I explained that they were all 
I had. Later I remembered that there were more 
in my kit at camp, and on leaving him to step Into 
the canoe I pulled them out of my pocket and 
handed them to him. I like to remember his 
look. A beggarly gift in a way, yet something 
after all for one whose eyes have failed. 

Almost at once came running good old Nijwa, 
to whom on old scores I owed more than any mere 
spectacles — came running for a pair too, but I 
had to tell her I had no more. In truth, I ought 
to have sent my last pair back to her from our 
camp. 

We were soon off. All the people gathered at 
the shore and stood silent as we started, waving 
as we made the distance, as is their custom to guests. 
Our host of the night was with us, also our guide of 
yesterday, and two boys, their sons. I had told 
them that if they would come over I would give 
them some silver I had. 

Tshlnutivlsh is a few miles down from the head 
of Mushauau Nipl, Barren Ground Lake. There 
was an Hudson's Bay Company post In the little 
estuary under the hill at one time, but the expense 
of supplying It was too great, the river below being 
very hard to ascend. It has no important falls, 
but a tremendous incline leading down a thousand 
feet or more. John McLean brought up a heavy 



A LITTLE KNOWN REGION 275 

boat about 1840, and his discovery of the Grand 
Falls was made from Chimo by way of this lake. 
Erlandson, prior to McLean, doubtless knew it 
well, Mrs. Hubbard passed it in 1905, Dillon 
Wallace later the same year. 

The Kanekautsh lakes we had traversed were 
doubtless known to the people of the former post, 
but it is not likely that they went far east, and our 
journey was almost certainly the first that has 
been made by whites from the coast to the George 
itself, certainly the first of which there is record. 
The best of the country, however, is the belt explored 
by Quackenbush and myself along the height of 
land. With its beautiful white moss hills and 
fine lakes it is one of the best wild places left any- 
where. But for the mosquitoes it would be a rare 
place in which to travel, as has been elsewhere 
intimated; indeed, but for their most effective 
guardianship of the shore the inland would doubt- 
less have been explored long ago. As it is, a 
warm weather trip there merely for pleasure, as 
one ordinarily goes to wild places, is not worth 
while. 

It was on the 9th of August we left Tshinutivish, 
a sunny, cool day. The Indians took us always 
over high, firm ground, if a little roundabout, 
consulting now and then how they would better 
go, and keeping us well out of swamps and calm 
fly pockets. The two men, who may have been 
brothers, talked with a pleasant rather rapid 
utterance much of the way. They were dis- 
cussing the deer situation, with them all in all, 
and were anxious. The season was well on and 
there was no sign of the deer coming together. I 
would have given much to be able to understand 
all they said; the epic of the life was in it. There 



276 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

were a good many deer, the country over, but 
by one of their mysterious impulses they might 
all vanish and go a hundred or two miles as if 
in some wireless way the word had been passed 
among them. The people had little food ahead. 
By the turn of the year the fish would go dormant 
in deep water and the desolate snow barrens would 
be lifeless. They could keep to the east side of 
the country and escape the worst by falling upon 
the trading posts, but the country on that side 
was empty of deer now, and had not had many since 
1903. Moreover, for the whole population to 
come upon outside resources would be a strain 
on the usual coast supply of provisions. On 
that side of the country there was little fur, more- 
over, to pay for their food. Grave questions 
these, and the lives of many, women and children 
and men, depended on the judgment of a few 
older heads — and upon fate. No wonder they 
make their offerings to the powers that can either 
withhold the deer entirely or send them in thou- 
sands to cover the hills ! 

As we walked and talked a doe and fawn took 
our track somewhere behind, and, caribou fashion, 
followed us along not far back, stepping high and 
lightly and beautiful in the sunshine, starting and 
stopping ready to flee. When they saw us turn and 
look they halted, and when an Indian went back 
for a shot they took themselves safely away. 

Arrived at the lake, we got out our kit and 
cooked for all. The Indians had cooked for us, 
now we cooked for them. Our good pemmican 
they appreciated, and the bread and tea. We 
were all leisurely, there was time and sunshine, 
and the day was ours. When the meal was over 
I shook out my bag of odds and ends and found 




In a Tshinutivish Lodge 




Hair Skins, Mistinipi, 1906, (See Page 238) 



A NASKAPI FAREWELL 277 

the silver. They looked It over, talked, and were 
cheerful. From inside their coats, after all seemed 
done, they pulled out little fawn skins for us, 
and I had to scrape together the last few dimes 
to meet the occasion. Then casually, and without 
words, they rose and strolled away; I set my 
camera scale and waited for their figures to rise 
upon the horizon. Arriving there, each Indian 
mounted one of the large boulders which stood 
sharp against the sky and all waved high their 
long arms for a little. We waved in return and 
they vanished. 

There was nothing more for us at Kanekautsh, 
and we departed, still four in the small canoe. 
We were anxious to be over the large lakes; the 
bays were deep, the country flat and scrubby, and 
not very good to travel afoot. There was some 
forty miles of large-water navigation, broken 
by three short portages, to the head of Mistlnipi. 
At the east end of the first lake, McM. and I took 
a couple of time-sights for longitude, the most 
valuable sights of the trip. Howe had taken two 
double altitudes at Mosquito Point on the 7th, 
but the meridian one was doubtful. A pan of 
bacon fat is not bad for a horizon when the sun 
is warm enough to keep it fluid, but there was 
air enough stirring to riffle its surface whenever the 
job came to a contact. The worst was mosquitoes, 
dropping into the pan in droves and descending 
upon H.'s succulent face and hands whenever the 
breeze let up. 

The "red sun" was plain enough to catch, 
coming direct, but the reflected one through the 
green glass was hard to find, and between wind 
and flies the observation was doubtful. It was an 
inhuman spectacle — H., the sensitive one of us 



278 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

to flies, jumping with torture, but holding himself 
desperately to the sacrifice, looking to the last 
for a green sun in a frying pan ! 

At Kanekautsh the time-sights were quickly 
made, and we kept on up the large lake until the 
sun was well under. Then a curious episode 
occurred. Ahead less than a mile a canoe, which 
we took for one of Ostinitsu's, or possibly of 
strange Indians, came around a point and made 
directly our way, presently swinging so as to 
cross our course a quarter of a mile ahead, but 
going steadily and fast. We could see no paddles 
in the underlight, and some one appeared to be 
standing. Then we saw that it was nearer than it 
had seemed and that there was something wrong, 
and in truth weird about it. Whatever the mani- 
festation was it paid no attention to us. By this 
time we were all mystified and at a loss. Once 
it was by we turned in chase, and before long 
saw that it was simply a huge pair of antlers 
carried by a stag low down in the water. Soon 
our four paddles overhauled him, and as we needed 
meat McMillan, in the bow, killed him neatly near 
the shore. 

The illusion of a canoe, and then the impres- 
sion of something outside one's daylight ex- 
perience, had been remarkably definite and identi- 
cal with us all. If the apparition had passed behind 
a point in the first eight or ten minutes we should 
always have counted it a canoe, after that heaven 
knows what. We should have had something to 
argue about for all time. 

This was the only large game shot during the 
trip. We were fresh meat hungry. The liver 
bore our first onslaught; it would not do to say how 
many pounds we ate before noon next day, when 




1-1 



h 



A MEAT GORGE 279 

we started on again. The liver cannot well be 
bettered in summer, however in winter, and even 
then the deer's barren ground diet of starchy- 
white moss may maintain its quality. In southern 
regions the deer kind change wholly as the snow 
deepens, the liver becomes blue, knurly, and bad 
to eat. So even with the solid meat then, that 
of the woodland caribou at least becoming hard 
and black after long feeding on the old-men's 
beards of tree moss; the flesh then smells of fer- 
mented moss, and does not keep well ; even pickled 
it spoils soon unless the bones are taken out. 

For a few days our meat improved, until the 
solid, thick collops that we roasted on sticks, 
each for himself, seemed beyond anything we had 
ever fallen upon. Clark and I had them without 
salt, Indian fashion, and were sure they were best 
that way. With time to lie about and give one's 
self up to the business of digestion there seems 
no limit to the amount one can eat and the fre- 
quency with which one can turn to it again. 
But one cannot play anaconda and do hard travel- 
ing at the same time. When steady on the road 
one needs more concentrated food, not much 
of it at a time, and better if what there is of it is 
comparatively indigestible. 

That year we had good fortune on sea, land, 
and lakes. From Turnavik, where the Invermore 
put us out in disappointment at her untimely 
turning back, to the foot of Kanekautsh, what- 
ever wind blew was with us. Now, going eastward 
again, we had no head wind of account all the 
way to Davis Inlet, near two hundred miles. 
Never was such persistent luck. Still, with the 
little canoe, it was kittle work crossing large bays. 
Mostly we followed far in and around, for the 



280 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

boat was like a log, and the shorter waves passed 
from end to end without lifting her. Sometimes 
the temptation to cut across a bay was too much, 
and then, sometimes, we needed all our little free- 
board, all. If a strong push of wind had followed 
us a mile we would have filled. There was little 
or no room to bail. Howe and Clark sat on the 
bottom with light packs actually laid upon their 
legs. What they would have done if things had 
gone wrong is not too easy to see. I was uneasy 
for myself at times, though high up at the steering 
paddle. 

A secondary object of the trip, after the carrying 
the Tshinutivish route through, was to look up the 
large lake on the head of Mistastin. I thought we 
could find it without much trouble, from what 
Indians had told me. We left the second lake 
east of the height of land August 13th, going afoot 
for the highest hill in sight, some six or eight 
miles away and somewhat west of south. There 
had been some discussion as to having time enough. 
The rest of the party feared missing their Octo- 
ber engagements. I demurred, suggested their 
keeping on to the coast, and urged them to do so, 
but to leave me the small canoe at the high portage 
to get out with; it was only twenty miles away. 
Finally they decided to stay, and we started for 
Mistastin with two or three days' supplies. It 
was about two o'clock in the afternoon. 

By five or six we reached the far hill, and 
Mistastin, a large spreading lake, was plainly 
visible off to the south. We made a sky camp, 
with good northern lights, in a wooded valley on 
toward the lake. It was nearer to a non-mosquito 
night than any other we had on the plateau save 
at Tshinutivish. The way on to the lake was poor, 



MISTASTIN 281 

along a rough valley side, with flies and bushes, 
and only occasional deer paths to follow. Near 
the lake McM. concluded to take a half day off, 
and the rest of us kept on three or four miles to a 
remarkable trap headland where I had been told 
the old-time Indians got their arrow-head ma- 
terial. There was some good travel, alternating 
with half-swampy levels, where grew larch, spruce, 
and alders, and we slopped through two barely 
passable streams. At the headland Clark's mocca- 
sins went through. Howe and I kept on up the hill. 
The southwest side was of organ-pipe basalt, with 
a fine, even talus slope below, the northeast corner 
a flintish-looking, light-colored trap, in small, 
flat slabs. Service berries were plenty on top and 
bear tracks to match. The western foot of the 
hill is skirted by a game trail, where the deer have 
to go in flanking the west end of the lake. After 
two hours of exploration we returned to Clark and 
started back north. I held the way unnecessarily 
over swampy ground east of our outgoing track, 
and carelessly came out quite a way east of the 
baggage. Turning westerly, Clark soon sighted 
McM. on a far sky line, concerned about us, for 
it was getting dark. 

We made a mile or so north and camped open 
to the sky again, on the very crest of the country, 
the wide moss hills of the height of land. The 
northern lights were remarkable. They shifted 
over us for hours in bands and curtains, looking 
marvelously near. I venture that one of the great 
festoons hung within three or four hundred feet 
of us. 

Westerly from Mistastin the country is low, 
and in places unusually well timbered with straight 
larch and spruce. One could build canoes and 



282 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

rafts at will. The great flow down MIstastin 
valley anciently is accounted for by this wide 
depression at its head. The headland we had 
visited is the striking remnant of a great erupted 
dike which has been torn through from west. 
I had seen porous gray basalt, probably from this 
dike, about the Assiwaban Forks for years with- 
out knowing its source. The Mistastin River 
takes the course of a great Z from the lake to the 
Assiwaban, with a deep caiion and high falls. The 
lake itself is probably at least twelve miles long 
and six or seven wide, with bold shores everywhere 
save at the west end. A high, long island, looking 
eruptive, rises in the west half, the rest of the lake 
being open. It is the finest piece of water I have 
seen in the Northeast, though not really very large; 
nothing of it would seem to have been known before. 

We took a straightish course back, making one 
high lift, but escaping many ridge-crossings, and 
saving some actual distance over our outward trip. 
But I, for one, was tired; the last few miles, 
though with only a moderate pack, dragged a good 
deal. I had missed a good deal of sleep when the 
others were doing well. Once back at our base 
camp I slumped down limp while the others cooked 
caribou. We all had a long afternoon of lying 
about. 

Next day we were off for the coast, all in tune 
and surprisingly springy. Caribou collops had 
picked us up. We passed several ponds quickly, 
half running the portages. At the kettle-boiling 
on a little pond along came Ostinitsu, with two 
other Indians and a boy; the rest of his party 
had taken a more westerly route. The little party 
spent an hour with us and were off west. At 
dark we were well toward the high portage. 



A RETURN TO THE SHORE 283 

We had cached two pieces of bacon near the 
top of the portage, one In a tree and the other In a 
cold pond, and were Interested to see what had 
happened to them; the weather had been far from 
cold, and after the sixteen days' absence we had 
not much hope of the water bacon. Indeed It was 
slimy and pretty bad, though the Inner part would 
have done at a pinch. The outside would have 
needed real starvation for a sauce. The tree 
bacon, which had escaped enemies from above 
and below, seemed to have actually sweetened 
in the cool, clean air, and was rather im- 
proved. 

The Natua-ashu gave us a cuffing; a north- 
wester came on as we started In. We kept close 
to the north shore for safety, but the small canoe 
Clark and I had required bailing. We held on, riding 
for a fall; there was little to risk at this stage of the 
trip. At the very last point was a little hook 
bight, beyond which we would be safe. I had not 
cared to go out around far, with our low freeboard, 
and was keeping well In, when, just in the bight, 
three large waves came; if there were more behind, 
things would go hard. We tried to turn the point, 
a mistake — I should rather have driven straight 
ashore. A squall kept the waves coming, actually 
broaching the larger canoe full into the trough, 
without filling her, however. Our fate was differ- 
ent, the boat filled, turned over instantly, and we 
had to swim for it. There was no trouble getting 
ashore, but the rifle and other sinkable kit went 
down In eight or nine feet of water. 

There was plenty of driftwood behind the lee 
of some alders, and we spent the rest of the day 
there, from ten o'clock, drying out and resting. 
In the calm of the next morning we hooked up the 



284 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

derelict stuff. What a hook would not catch a 
wire snare on a stick did. 

Our trap boat, bought from Captain Bartlett 
at Turnavik, was waiting at Winter's, and in 
two days we worked our way to Geer's. The boat 
was slow and heavy, albeit known to us as the 
"Lady Maud," but we came to a sort of affection 
for her. For a few hours getting to Geer's place we 
had a head wind, the only one of that miraculously 
wind-favored trip. 

Tom Geer and his wife helped us to Davis 
Inlet, fifteen miles, and showed us what intimate 
knowledge of tides would do. We rowed or 
paddled, all six of us, till the heavy craft moved 
like a thing of life; currents and a final wind did 
more, and we made port in a wonderfully short time. 
On our own resources we might have taken a day 
or more. 

We were glad to rest two or three days in the 
willing hands of Mr. Johnson, the new agent, who 
helped us on later. We had brought some souve- 
nirs from the Indian camp, but in experienced 
hands at the post they were soon boiled out. 
(Mem.: Some sulpho-napthol for insects is worth 
having along to save boiling one's woolens.) 
Wind and rain put us ashore a night in Flowers' 
Bay, and a northwester following, a cracking wind, 
made us glad to change from the open boat to a 
schooner in Windy Tickle. We caught the Stella 
Maris at Hopedale by a scratch, but not too late 
to dine with the Lenzes at the Mission. 

The 1910 trip was a fair success. The strong 
party, perhaps physically the most capable, and 
without professional packers the best equipped 
of any that has gone into the peninsula, was very 
effective and hard to stop. We did not work very 



THE LAST OF LABRADOR 285 

long days, though taking it by and large all had 
work enough, and every one at one time or another 
showed signs of wear. 



On coming out we were surprised to learn that 
an expedition had gone into the country from 
Nain at about the time we started in by the Assi- 
waban. The travelers were Mr. Hesketh Prichard 
and Mr. Hardie, with their guide. Porter. They 
paralleled our route at a distance from it of some 
twenty miles, reaching the Barren Ground Lake 
ten days after we did. They saw no Indians. 
The ground they traversed is somewhat higher 
and more rocky than along the Assiwaban, with 
fewer lakes, and withal should be better suited 
to a foot trip. Much of this country was more or 
less distantly viewed by one and another of us in 
1904 and 1905, from elevations along our way, 
in particular from the hills about Mistinipi. 

In 1911 the Indian country was unvexed by 
any white person, so far as I can learn. McMillan 
made a long canoe trip on the coast, but did not 
go inland. At Davis Inlet he saw one or two of 
old E.'s family and a chance Naskapi. After all, 
the people had managed to pull through the winter, 
and in the spring had a great migration at Mis- 
tinipi. They speared a thousand deer. 

Now, in November, the snow is over the coun- 
try, there is meat for the winter, and the lodge life 
at its best is going on in the sheltered bays. In 
such times of plenty the Indian life is peculiarly 
attractive, perhaps more so than the life of any 
other hunter race that survives on earth. The 
people are lords over their fine country, asking 



286 IN NORTHERN LABRADOR 

little favor, ever, save that the deer may come In 
their time. It was one of the notable privileges 
of my wilderness days to have the best of their 
country to myself for some years, unexplored as 
it was, and even more to me was the relation with 
the people themselves. 

They are all east of the George now; all that 
I know who are living. Old Ostinltsu is there 
surely, for he Is tough; and Nahpayo, who "sees 
far," with his pretty young wife. Pakuun-noh, a 
good man. Is gone; he Is hunting In an easier world 
now. His wife is with the others; her son. Fox- 
boy, with his father's and mother's gentleness, 
must be getting a large boy now. Puckway is 
there, with his friendly eyes, Ashimaganish, Kamo- 
ques, Pl-a-shun-a-hwao, and straight old Nljwa, 
who has outlived her looks. 

They are all there, where the nights are 
already long, and the snow flashes keen to the 
northern lights. There Is plenty now, the chil- 
dren's faces are round; there is plenty for the burnt 
offerings, always of the best — and the people do 
not forget. There Is plenty to offer Kl-way-tln-o- 
shuh, the god of the Northwind and Snow, In 
these days of his growing power. Now are the 
Maqulsh, the Little People, hidden In their rocks, 
now are the Under-water People sleeping the win- 
ter away. The wide snowshoes come and go, the 
tracks of the long tapakun ribbon the winter ways. 
Little the people are asking. Their country still 
Is theirs, and the deer; and long may they so remain. 



APPENDIX 

MICE 

THE "part played by that humble creature, one might 
easily say humble nuisance, the mouse, in the econ- 
omy of barren ground life, has been touched upon 
in previous pages. With the caplin of the coast waters, and 
the rabbit, the varying hare of the forested North, creatures 
existing mainly to feed their predatory superiors, the mouse 
has an importance quite beyond its apparent insignificance. 
The mouse of the barrens is rather square built, about 
the size of a common field mouse, with a shortish, stumpy 
tail. Like the rabbit it increases in numbers through a term 
of years and suddenly disappears. The rabbits at least are 
known to die off from a disease like anthrax. In years of 
their scarcity districts where there are no lakes to provide 
a fish supply are not hunted by the Indians, who seek other 
grounds. In these years the lynx, the chief rabbit hunter of 
all, is said not to breed. The hardship of the rabbit's ab- 
sence is felt also by the martens, whose Indian name, by the 
way, is Wapistan, "Rabbit-hunter," as well as by the birds 
of prey and other hunting creatures. 

In like manner the caplin governs the movements of the 
cod, and probably certain of the whales. It has been held 
that the recent destruction of whales from the stations at 
Hawk Harbor and Cape Charles, on the Labrador, has 
affected the cod fishing through the caplin as intermediary. 
The idea is that the whales drive the caplin inshore, and the 
cod follow in where they can be caught. Now, with the 
thinning out of the whales, it is thought that the caplin and 
cod tend to remain out at sea where they cannot be reached. 
On this theory, I have been told, whaling has been restricted 
in certain Norwegian waters, and similar legislation has been 
suggested for Labrador. 

Perhaps as many creatures depend upon mice as upon 
either rabbit or caplin, although people, indeed, rarely eat 
them. Indirectly they may play as important a part in the 
concerns of the Indians as the rabbit itself; and this although, 

287 



288 APPENDIX 

in the fur countries at least, one may well touch his hat 
with respect when the name of the Indians' "Little 
White One" is mentioned. 

In 1903, my first year in the country, mice were not 
noticeably plenty. Caribou had been abundant through the 
winter, by early July passing north in large numbers close 
to the coast. There were some falcons about, the splendid 
light-colored gyrfalcons, besides broad-winged hawks, dark 
and almost equally fierce. Both kinds breed in cliffs about 
the islands. I saw few ptarmigan, the one with chicks at 
Jim Lane's being all I remember; however, I spent little 
time inland that year. Foxes, the most important fur game, 
were fairly plenty. 

By 1904 mice were distinctly abundant. Hawks were 
more numerous, the white ones shrilling from many cliffs 
as we approached their nests. It was that year, I think, per- 
haps the next, that foxes were noted by the shore people 
as being scattered and shy; they would not take bait. As to 
the trout up river I do not remember, but they probably 
made something of their chance at the mice. If, however, 
the mice take to the water mainly when migrating, the trout 
may not have had many that year. 

Ptarmigan were fairly numerous. The wolverene we 
shot was full of mice. There were no caribou to speak of. 
We saw a good many wolf tracks, chiefly along the river 
banks, where mice are apt to be, but heard no wolves at 
night. There were some hawks and a few owls all the way 
inland. 

The next year, 1905, was the culminating year of the mice. 
Sometimes two at a time could be seen in the daylight. Low 
twigs and all small growth were riddled by them. There was 
a tattered aspect about the moss and ground in many places 
not quite pleasant to see. We saw few mice in the river, 
but perhaps they swam nights. Falcons had increased 
visibly, nesting on most cliffs from Cape Harrigan to Misti- 
nipi, a hundred and fifty miles distance. Owls were not 
many, but had increased somewhat; we saw only one snowy 
owl. All trout of more than a half pound had mice inside. 
Ptarmigan were very plenty, and the wolves — we may have 
seen the tracks of two hundred — were silent still. The bear 
of the trip was full of mice. He was very fat, as doubtless 
the other predatory animals and birds were. They were in 



MICE 289 

much the situation of some of us Vermont children one year 
when blackberries were unusually thick; the bushes were 
hanging with them, and all we had to do was to walk up to 
them with hands down and "eat with our mouths." Cari- 
bou were still scarce, even on George River, and foxes plenty. 

In the spring of 1906 the mice disappeared with the snow. 
The local impression was that they moved away at these 
times, but such is almost always the prevailing belief, 
whether as to buffalo, caribou, or fish, in fact any sort of 
game. It is possible that they did move, but if so one ought 
to hear of their reappearing somewhere occasionally in 
large numbers, and so far as I learn this is not their way. 

With the vanishing of the mice the change in the visible 
life of the country was remarkable. The falcon cliffs were 
deserted, coast and inland. Where the birds had gone none 
could say. They had seemed to belong to the country. 
We felt the absence of their superb flights and cries. 

In the trout reaches of the Assiwaban fish were numerous, 
but they were living on flies now, with what minnows they 
could get, and were no longer mousey, but sweet and good. 
No owls appeared; there had, however, never been very many. 
Our bear of the year was living on berries, and did not smell 
beary or greasy when we skinned him; the meat was singu- 
larly sweet and well flavored. 

Ptarmigan were all but wanting, old birds and young. 
It is fair to suppose that in previous years they were let 
alone by their natural enemies in the presence of the super- 
abundant mouse supply, and were enabled to increase to 
their unusual numbers of 1905. Their enemies — birds 
wolves, foxes, wolverenes and what not, increased also. 
For two or three years they had had only to sit down and 
eat. Now, in a plight with the disappearance of the mice, 
they harried the ptarmigan to nearly the last egg and 
feather. We missed their evening crowing in the scrub. 

The refuse of the deer crossing at Mistinipi gathered 
many of the animals and the ravens. Sixty wolverene skins 
came to Davis Inlet post that year, where eight or ten 
would come ordinarily. 

For the first time we heard the wolves nights, a far, high- 
pitched howl — their hunting cry. I suppose it is for the ears 
of the caribou. Uneasy, they move, a track is left for the 
wolf to find, and sooner or later the chase is on. There had 



290 APPENDIX 

been no need of thus stirring up the game from a distance 
in the mouse hunt. 

Whether the caribou may not have kept out of the coun- 
try because the mice were in possession is a question. 
The ravelled moss and other leavings of the mice were a 
little unpleasant to our eyes, perhaps also to the sensitive 
nose and taste of the caribou, as sheep ground is to the 
larger grazing animals. I have long suspected that the 
caribou did not care to feed along with the mice. It is 
possible, however, that being let alone by the wolves in the 
south while the latter were sitting among the mice in the 
north, the caribou merely stayed passively where they were. 
The absence of Indians in the Southern part of the deer range 
would also support the idea that their being undisturbed had 
to do with their staying there. Once the wolves found 
themselves upon the hard times of early 1906 they may 
have sought the caribou and stirred them to move. They 
certainly did move, as the twelve or fifteen hundred carcasses 
at Mistinipi that year went to show. 

The bearing of the mouse situation on the human inter- 
ests of the region are easy to see. It affected all the game, 
food game and fur. The abundance of mice tended to 
build up the ptarmigan, which are of vital importance in the 
winter living of the Indians through the whole forested area 
to the Gulf. Likewise it built up the caribou herd by pro- 
viding easier game than they for the wolves. 

The departure of the mice did the reverse, reducing the 
deer and ptarmigan, but it may have brought the deer 
migration as suggested, giving at any rate an easy year to the 
hard-pressed Indians of the George. At last they had good 
food and new clothes and lodges, in all of which necessaries 
they had gone very low. They killed too many deer at Mis- 
tinipi, still ver>' many passed south again the next year. 
There have been deer in the country ever since, with not 
many mice. 

All in all it is hard to imagine any other natural change 
which would have affected the fortunes, sometimes the fate, 
of all the other creatures of the peninsula, from man to fish, 
as did the coming and going of the mice during the years 
from 1903 to 1906. Only fire could have done the like. 
Nor were the shore people by any means untouched. All 
their land game came and went, was plenty or wanting, shy 



MICE 291 

or easily taken, according to the supply of mice. London 
and St. Petersburg, easily, were affected through their great 
fur trade. 

It would be farfetched to speculate seriously as to the 
influence of our multitudinous little rodent upon the fish and 
whales of the deep sea, even if there were any such thing as 
tracing these matters to their final end. A run of mice, 
nevertheless,may make itself felt quite beyond adjacent sea 
waters. The fish we are concerned with all feed at much the 
same sea table — the salmon and sea trout that visit the 
inland, the cod and the whales that do not. Their business, 
chiefly, is eating, and they are more or less in competition. 
What one gets another does not. The wellbeing of the 
anadromous fish, the fish which ascend a hundred rivers, 
is somewhat at the expense of the other kinds of fish left 
behind. What one kind eats the others cannot have. In 
mouse times there are more and larger fish to go back to the 
sea, if partly because their enemies such as otter and mink ne- 
glect fishing for the easy mouse-hut. There are more fresh- 
water trout left, too, to go down to the bays as they do, and 
join the hunt for caplin; and again, whatever they get the 
cod do not, nor the whales. 

The gulls may be regarded; they are neighbors, at least, 
with the fish — the predatory gulls which nest over the in- 
land waters, picking up mice and young birds and all dere- 
lict life they can master, all things dead and alive. Their 
range extends from the cod and caplin swarming passages 
of the coast archipelago to the far apex of the peninsula at 
Nichicun. 

The falcons? When the mice go and famine comes, do 
they descend upon the young of the gulls, and vice-versa? 
Truly the maze of life is complicated ! 

The year the mice disappeared I was not wholly away from 
their influence even at home in New Hampshire. They 
or their ghosts followed as in the old tale of the Mouse Tower. 
Whether as a case of cause and effect, that winter a remark- 
able flight of goshawks, the "winter hawks" of the Labrador, 
moved down upon the northern states, looking for food. 
There also appeared, so I read at the time, a wide flight of 
snowy owls. The hawks were a scourge to our native game. 
One of them used to sit on a high dead limb, commanding a 
reach of woods behind our family house in Dublin, looking 



292 APPENDIX 

for partridges, which had become numerous. The partridges 
could cope well enough with our usual birds of prey, such as 
hawks and owls, and the ground animals, and had more than 
held their own for some time. But in the presence of this 
lightning bolt from the north they were helpless, and were 
picked up fast. By spring they were about all gone. 

In time, if whale and cod, wolverene and wolf, Indian 
and falcon are not swept from the scene by our remorseless 
civilization, the important role of such creatures as have 
been mentioned, the low food-bearers, may be followed 
through, and what is casual inference, in many fields, may be 
demonstrated as true cause and result, or, on the other hand, 
dismissed as unwarranted. We can only put together first 
coincidences at sight, leaving further observation to deter- 
mine certainties. The thread of causality traced here is at 
least more obvious than some outdoor theories that are 
based upon longer experience; as was, for instance, Sprack- 
lin's belief that cod came in well at Fanny's only in years 
when berries were plentiful on the land. Who shall say? 
Among the myriad existences of the open there is room for 
many a thread unseen. 



FEB 19 1912 




One copy del. to Cat. Div. 

FEB !9 1912 



